Bank on it
by jibber59
Summary: "You continue to believe I cannot conduct myself in such a manner as to avoid encountering misfortune." Well, since it was Ezra speaking, the answer would have to be yes. (ATF universe)
1. Chapter 1

"Great! The line-up for pizza is even longer that the one at the bank. No way are we getting back to work on time."

Ezra smiled inwardly at the impatience of youth, while favouring JD with a world-weary stare. "In the first place, as Chris was the instigator of this errand, given his craving for pizza - which in and of itself is unusual – is what inspired our excursion, he can scarcely justify deeming us responsible for an extended lunch period."

"And in the second place?"

"There is no need for both of us to linger at each location, when we can simply divide the tasks, taking one venue apiece, thereby reducing the overall delay period."

JD looked anxious at the suggestion. "I don't know about that. Chris sent us out on this together, and he said - well, that's not important. He sent us out together."

There was definitely more to this than met the eye. "He said what?"

"Not important Ezra. Just think we should wait together. Keep each other company."

"He said what, Mr. Dunne?"

The younger man fidgeted, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. When was he going to learn to keep his mouth shut? If Ezra didn't kill him now, Chris certainly would later. "Well, he uh - he just kind of suggested that I stick with you is all. No big deal Ezra. Oh come on Ez. Don't do that."

His plea was ignored as Ezra had already speed-dialed the office. "Would I be accurate in my assumption, Mr. Larabee, that you have ascertained I am incapable of the preservation of my own best interests?"

 _No hello, and it was Mr. Larabee. Well, that went bad fast. Why did I think for a second the JD would be able to keep that simple bit of information from Ezra? The man read people far too well to not spot the deception at the first hint of a problem. And there was always a problem. Next time, Vin goes with him._ "Now Ezra, it ain't like that."

"Really? Precisely what is it like?"

"Look, I will grant you that every one of us has a knack for falling into more kinds of trouble that is normal, but you elevate that to an art. I just figured if someone was with you, it might be a little less likely to happen is all."

"You continue to believe I cannot conduct myself in such a manner as to avoid encountering misfortune." It was a statement, not a question. The follow up was far more problematic. "Or would it be more accurate to declare assert that it is the banking funds you do not trust me with?"

"That's not fair Ezra. You know that's not the issue."

Ezra silently cursed himself out. He did know that kind of trust had nothing to do with any of this. Those issues were long since history on the team, and the fact that he even brought it up showed how frustrated he was by this turn. "I do not require the assistance of a minder Mr. Larabee. I have been effectively addressing the issue of my self-preservation for the better part of my life and in the course of that period have developed a vast array of skills to enable me to do so. I would, therefore, appreciate it if you could endeavour to accept that fact and show some modicum of respect for my expertise." He hung up abruptly, knowing he was going to have to deal with the consequences of his little rant later. He turned on his heel and headed to the bank without saying another word.

JD watched after him with a guilty look clouding his face. He bit as his lip nervously and reached for his phone. Before he could put his hands on it, he heard the theme from _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ ring out. "Hey Chris. I'm sorry, it just kind of -"

"Never mind. Trying to keep anything from Ezra is a fool's errand. He still with you?"

"No, he stomped off to the bank. You want me to follow him?"

"That's only gonna make it worse. It's me he's pissed off at. No sense letting you take the anger. Go ahead and get the pizzas. We'll sort it out when you guys get back here."

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Ezra came embarrassingly close to storming well past the door to the bank, focused as he was on his internal rant. He took the few steps back he needed to and entered, calming his outward appearance as he headed to the reception desk. The idea that Chris would presume to decide it was impossible for him to perform the most basic of tasks without getting into some kind of trouble was beyond offensive. It was condescending. It was insulting. And, he reluctantly admitted, it was grounded in some small, miniscule, minute grain of truth. He did have a propensity for finding himself in situations that lent themselves to unfortunate outcomes. Still, that was no excuse. He was going to sit Larabee - no, better yet all of them – down and have a little chat about this kind of treatment.

He turned his charm on high as he smiled broadly at the young lady behind the desk. "Good day madam, I would like to speak to someone about setting up a trust account for a charity our workplace is involved in."

"Of course sir. If you will just give me a mom-" she paused with a look of terror on her face. An instant later he heard why.

"Nobody moves and nobody dies. Ladies and gentlemen - this is a stick-up!"

 _Damn_ , Ezra thought. _I am never going to live this down._

M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7


	2. Chapter 2

JD kept half his focus on the bank. He suspected that if Ezra finished his errand first, there was a better than even chance he would go back to the office on his own. Not that JD thought he'd be intentionally abandoned, but given the mood he was in right now, Ezra might just forget he wasn't alone. That concern and attention explained why he noticed the blinds being closed. He supposed that could be against the sun. It was a bright day out. The slowly growing pit in his stomach was telling him there was more to this, and when he saw the guard locking the bank door, he knew he was right. Damn. Damn it. Just once Ezra. Just once, could you **not** be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Knowing he needed to update Chris, he reached for his phone. Just before hitting the screen to connect it occurred to him there was a higher priority call to make.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"My name is J.D. Dunne. I am an agent with the ATF. I have reason to believe the First National Bank at Gilmour and 5th avenue is being robbed. My partner is in the bank."

"What other details to you have?"

"None I'm afraid. Blinds have been closed and the door was locked by the security guard." He knew it wasn't a lot to base his suspicion on, but the operator seemed to accept the premise.

"Please stay on the line. Units are being dispatched sir. They are on silent approach."

"I have to get off the line to contact my supervisor. I will call you back." Not waiting for the negative response he knew that would get, he disconnected and called Chris, who had obviously checked the display.

"Let me guess - Ezra left you behind?"

"Uh, no. Chris. I think we have a bit of a situation here."

There was no mistaking the tension in the young agent's voice. "You're still at the pizza joint?"

"Yes, but problems not here. It's the bank. I think it's being robbed."

Fighting to squelch the overwhelming "I told you so" sensation, Chris reached for his weapon and badge. "You call the locals?"

"First thing. He's still in there."

"Of course he is. We're on our way."

Without knowing what was going on, the others had started to ready themselves as well. Chris's tone was all they needed to hear to know there was something bad going on. "On our way where?" Vin asked, already halfway to the door.

"The bank."

Buck groaned. "Shit. He's done it again, hasn't he?"

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Ezra was trying to convince himself was that the worst part of this whole ordeal was that Chris now had more ammunition to defend his actions. And the realization that those actions had been valid. It wasn't as if he went looking for trouble but there was no denying he managed to find it with a disconcerting regularity.

The limited space behind the counters in the bank was now crowded by hostages, who sat huddled in clusters on the floor. The had been reminded in no uncertain terms of the advantages of staying quiet and still, and for the most part were following the commands. Someone was crying softly, and Ezra was fairly certain a number of people were praying. Personal beliefs aside, at this point, he was willing to accept any outside assistance. He tried to size the situation up without drawing any undue attention to himself. He'd counted 3 thieves, all dressed casually in a manner not designed to draw undue attention. Sunglasses and baseball caps pulled down helped to disguise their appearance, but the all quickly had covered their faces more effectively with scarves. That was the best sign he'd seen so far. If they were trying to shield themselves, they didn't plan on getting rid of any witnesses. He hoped. On the other hand, they were robbing the bank at one of the busiest times of the day. Too many people to control, which could make things get ugly quickly. That was an amateur mistake. Or part of a ploy more devious that he had divined yet.

He looked around at his fellow hostages. None of the people he was sitting with on the floor leapt out at him as anyone likely to be of significant trouble. Or help, not that he would consider putting anyone in that position. Most seemed as calm as could be expected under the circumstances. There were 17 of them left after the manager had been led away. Ezra could only assume he was taken to open a vault or provide some other access to something. The possibilities were endless. Whatever it was, it seemed to be slowing down what should have been a quick in-and-out job. These guys were after more than the cash in the drawers. If the vault was on a timer, and most were, this could turn into a long afternoon. And, maddening as it was, the best play right now was to acquiesce to any and every demand made of them.

"We got company." The gunman watching out the window called back to the others. It was the first time any of them other than the initial speaker had said a word. "Someone called the cops."

The other two joined him, staying off to the side. After a quick look out, the group spokesman turned to face the hostages. "One of you heroes push the silent alarm?" He scanned each face for a hint as to who had tipped off the cops. "Speak up, or I'll just pick someone at random to pay for it."

 _Oh yes, that was going to encourage someone to come forward._ Ezra had little doubt this was JD's handiwork. How he could tell them that without exposing himself as a lawman was the dilemma. Before he had the chance to say anything, the woman from the reception desk spoke quietly.

"Might be because we locked up. A few people have come to the door. Maybe one of them called?"

"Well what do you know – we have a thinker in the room. A looker too." She swallowed nervously under his scrutiny and let out an audible sigh when he returned his attention to the job. "This is going to complicate things for you folks." He glanced down at his watch before looking around the room for a few minutes, as if searching for inspiration. A shift in body posture told Ezra a plan had been reached, and he knew whatever it was, he wasn't going to like it.

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Three ATF vehicles pulled up a block away. The men had figured there was a chance they would need to split their resources and wanted to be prepared, although not one of them wanted to be away from the scene, and their captive friend. Chris headed toward the command car, while Buck went to check on JD, who was off to the side.

"Sorry sir, that badge doesn't mean anything here." The uniformed officer was doing an admirable job of keeping the scene under control, and at any other time, Chris would have appreciated the man's dedication and commitment. This was not any other time.

"One of my men called this in, and another one is inside. You let me pass, or there is going to be a second crime scene to deal with."

"No need to threaten dismemberment Larabee. You can come ahead."

Chris almost sagged with relief at the sight of a familiar face. Detective Morton had worked with the team on more than one occasion in the past. They didn't see eye to eye on everything, but at least the man knew how to deal with a crisis.

"I talked to your man Dunne. From the lack of movement in there, I'd say he called it right."

"Any signs of activity?"

"Blinds have moved a few times. That's it. We tried calling, but no answer." He knew what the real question was. "There has been no gunfire or anything else to indicate anyone has been hurt. Your boy tells me Standish is in there."

Chris rubbed at the back of his neck, trying in vain to loosen some of the tension. "Routine banking business. No reason they should have made him as an agent."

"Unless they've collected wallets from everyone."

"Given half a chance, Ezra will have palmed his ID."

Morton laughed at that. "That's right. Hell, he could probably make a desk disappear in there if he needs to. Hiding his badge should be child's play."

"Just so long as the move doesn't put anyone else at risk. I take it we know nothing else."

"Nope, but I'm gonna try calling again. I've got to figure they'll answer sooner or later."

Chris agreed. What worried him was what would happen after that.

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There was a truly annoying relentlessness with which the large clock on the wall continued to tick. It was the only sound that could be heard whenever the drilling from the vault stopped. Ezra couldn't clear his mind of the comparison to a slow steady heartbeat. As if the building itself was somehow another living thing. Another hostage caught in a complex and terrifying drama on what should have been a routine Wednesday.

He looked around yet another time at his fellow captives. As the shock of the takeover wore off, the trepidation became more apparent on each face. He tried to imagine what they were thinking, what they were feeling. Most would be wondering what was next. What chance they had of getting out of here. Given the choice, they would be calling a family member, saying all of the things they should have said when they left the house that morning. A thousand variations on 'I love you' to people they feared they would never see again. Ezra himself was wishing he could replay his last two conversations. He had little doubt JD would be a long time getting over his misguided sense of responsibility for letting this happen. For letting things slip that culminated in the rant to Chris and subsequent storming off into this hornet's nest. Likewise Chris would be haunted by the fact their last discussion was a fight. Given the frequency with which their discussions escalated to that stage, it was not stretching the odds to assume that that would be the case, but such a realization would not be any comfort. There would be varying levels of remorse and self-recriminations within the rest of the team as well. No matter that there was nothing they could be doing. They would feel a sense of failure, and that simple truth distressed him deeply.

Most of the people in the room jumped when the phone rang, even though they should have been getting used to the sound. It was at least the 5th time, and still the was no indication of an intention to answer. Ezra had to assume since it hadn't been ripped from the wall or shot of the desk, as he was tempted to do, the robbers planned to be using it later. Either that, or they simply had a higher threshold for annoyance than he did.

"I believe it might be in the best interest of all concerned it you were to institute contact with a representative of law enforcement." Ezra didn't have to reach too far into his bag of tricks to add a tremor of fear to his voice. This situation didn't read well, and he was very good at reading people and situations.

"What makes you an expert?" The question was accompanied by a smirk, and the redirection of a weapon to be pointed squarely at Ezra.

"I have had a tendency to favour the viewing of numerous films which delve into the matter. Additionally, common sense would dictate that if you elect to enter into negotiations, you require the establishment of communications with the parties involved."

"Well don't you talk pretty. All the fancy words and the smooth accent. Bet you think you're really something special, don't you?"

"Not at all. I simply am hoping that this matter can be resolved in a manner we will all find satisfactory."

The gunman stepped up next to Ezra, laying the barrel of the gun on his shoulder, aimed toward him. "Don't give a damn about what you hope. Sit back and shut up, unless you want to serve as a lesson to the others."

The leader walked back to the vault area again. He had done that several times already and continued to pace. The periodic drilling sound could still be heard from the safety deposit vault. If they planned on opening each and every one, this was going to take a while. The only time the man had stopped his wandering was to sit at the manager's desk for a few minutes. He glanced from time to time at the clustered hostages and appeared to be checking his watch frequently before starting to make some kind of notes on a desk pad. He set the stack of papers off to the side and wandered to the vault yet again.

"If I may be so bold?" Ezra's voice broke through the silence and the gunman at the window turned abruptly with his weapon aimed straight as Ezra's head. "I was wondering if it would be permissible to be allowed as small break to –" he hesitated, affecting the air of a man slightly embarrassed, "- to visit the facilities?"

The gun was lowered as the thief chuckled. "Hey, our fancy fella out here needs to take a leak." he hollered back, laughing as Ezra blushed. The leader returned and eyed the man he was quickly viewing as a pain in the ass.

"Weak bladder – or are you just mite nervous?"

"I believe being unnerved under the present circumstances is a rational and logical development, and I am equally sure I am not the only one feeling the pressure." His voice trembled as he spoke, and he made sure to avoid any eye contact. Fidgeting with his ring was the final touch to the act.

"Hate to be counting on you in a crisis. Yeah – go. Don't want to have a mess here to clean up."

Ezra stood slowly, doing his best to appear unsure of his footing and anxious. He had taken only a few steps when he was stopped.

"Hold it." The leader called over to the other man. "Frisk him. Get his phone. Get everybody's phone." Ezra reached toward his pocket to hand it over, not wanting any closer examination of what he was concealing. It was the wrong move.

"I said, hold it. What – you don't want him frisking you?"

"I would prefer to take care of more urgent concerns first."

"Too bad. Cross your legs, 'cause you ain't going anywhere." He stepped up next to Ezra. "What is it you don't want us to find friend?"

Slowly Ezra began to reach into his jacket, asking permission to do so with his eyes. The answering curt nod, along with the second gun being pointed at him, told him all he needed to know about being cautious. He slowly pulled his weapon from the holster. "I carry large sums of cash. That's why I was here. To withdraw funds for my business. I didn't plan to – I would never consider trying to use it on any of you. I've never even fired it at the shooting range. I didn't…" his hysterical rant was silenced by a strong backhanded slap from the hand that had taken his gun. The force of the handle on his skin split his cheek open and he dropped to the floor in a daze.

"Search him. Search all of them." He stormed back to the vault.

M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

"Why haven't you tried calling again?" Chris's rather limited patience was being stretched to the limit. Not being able to do something – anything – was bad enough. But not even knowing what was going on was rapidly pushing him over the edge.

"Our best negotiator is tied up on another situation – some kind of domestic deal. I've been told to back off until we get –"

Chris turned his head. "Josiah, get your ass over here!" He looked back at Morton. "You know Sanchez. He's one of the best profilers you'll ever meet. Let him make the call. No way can your guy be any better."

Morton hesitated for only a moment before handing the phone over. "I don't need to tell you the drill. And for the record, I will catch a dozen kinds of hell if I can't tell the bosses I reminded you that your man is not the only person in there."

Chris glared at the implication, but Josiah shrugged it off. Ezra might be their priority, but every member of the team knew how to do his job, without prejudice. He took the phone and signalled he was ready for the call to be put through. It rang close to twenty times before he heard a gruff "What?" at the other end.

"My name is Josiah Sanchez, and I am hoping –"

"You can call me John. And I don't care what you want, here's what we do. Clear passage. Bus outta here. We have a driver, so don't think you can rig that on us. Plane at the airport, enough fuel for at least 6 hours. And you might as well sweeten the pot. A million bucks."

"Do you need a pilot?"

"What?"

"Will you need a pilot?"

John hesitated. "You're saying we can get all of that?"

"No. But it would be nice to know if one of you has those qualifications. Help us to figure out what is going on. Unless of course you'd like to tell us and make all of this end well."

The thief laughed. "An honest cop! Who would have guessed? We'll get back to you. Call in 15 minutes."

"Wait. Damn – he hung up."

"First impressions?"

Josiah reviewed the conversation before answering. "This isn't his first rodeo, he's too calm about it. Only thing that threw him off was saying he could have what he wanted. But there was something in his tone. A bit of hesitation. Not at all sure what it means at this point."

Morton studied him. "So, what does any of that do for us?"

"So far, not much. But at least we're talking."

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The wastebasket was full of phones and wallets. Surprisingly, no one else was armed, but there were a couple of pocket knives tossed in. Ezra was glad he'd been able to get his ID shoved under a desk, so at least that much of his identity was hidden. His wallet contained nothing that would show him to be an agent. They were thorough enough checking him to make him was glad he didn't have the derringer with him. That could not have been explained away as easily. Besides, it was bad enough to lose one gun. Losing two was unimaginable.

He'd been able to focus enough on the phone call to figure out something wasn't right. The demands made no sense to him. Maybe it was the pounding headache he was developing, made worse by the incessant drilling from the back room, but he was damned if he could sort this all out.

"Listen up ladies and gentlemen. We're going to have a little lottery here. Everybody is going to get a number, and that is going to help me figure out what do to next." John tossed the papers he'd been writing on earlier into a bag. "Pass it around and take one."

The bag passed quietly from hand to hand. Most gave in to basic human curiosity and looked to see what they had drawn. A few didn't seem to care.

"Everybody with a number higher than 9, you'll be moving to the back room. Getting too crowded up here." That move wasn't surprising. It would be harder to launch a rescue attempt if the hostages were divided. Ezra glanced as his paper and sighed to himself with relief. Nine. That was cutting it close. He needed to be out front. The 8 who had the higher numbers stood and made their way back, looking over their shoulders at the rest, no doubt wondering if they would ever see them again. "The rest of you sit tight. We'll be starting the fun soon."

Ezra looked around at the remaining group. He was certain he knew the answer, but asked quietly "Who has number one?"

He wasn't the least bit surprised by the nervous woman who nodded slightly at him. She looked frightened by the admission. "I don't suppose that means I'm going to be the first they release – does it?"

If it would have served any purpose, he would have lied to her in a heartbeat. "No. I am afraid that is unlikely Miss…?"

"Eddington. Sylvia."

He placed his paper on the ground and slid it toward her as unobtrusively as possible. His eyes directed her to do the same. When she hesitated, he whispered. "Trust me." She moved to slide hers when a heavy foot came down to block the transaction.

"Now, now. We put rules out there for a reason. You trying to move yourself up in the rankings friend?"

"I am not your friend." Ezra answered coldly.

John picked up the papers. "So you want to go from nine to one. You really do think you're something special, don't you?" In the hope of being able to get a better read on his subject, Ezra decided his best option was to piss the man off. It was, after all, a skill at which he excelled. When he failed to respond, he was dragged to his feet and shoved against a desk. He felt a stab of pain as his knee made contact with the corner drawers. "Asked you a question!" Remaining silent resulted in being grabbed by the collar and thrown against a wall. The action served only to further irate his knee, and Ezra decided any further defiance would only result in more pain, with no beneficial insights. Accepting the fact that keeping his wits about him was essential, he broke his silence.

"What possible difference does it make what my motivations were?"

John stared for several seconds. "More to you than you're letting on, isn't there? You're not a cop. Least you don't dress like one. No cop can wear thousand-dollar suits and $400 shoes. You on our side of the law?"

"Hardly." Truth be told, the suit had been only about $750, but he saw no benefit in offering the correction.

"Well, you're right. Motive doesn't much matter to me. You just made the worst deal of your life."

"Clearly you don't know me. You are presuming a great deal with that statement."

The crook looked Ezra over thoughtfully. "Seems a shame we're at cross purposes here. I have the feeling you and I might well become friends. Under other circumstance of course."

Ezra snorted softly. "I am far more circumspect in selecting those to whom I would ascribe that description. I can assure you, you would not make the list."

"Not good enough for you?"

"Not even close." His honesty got him another hard slap to the face, opening the cut again. He managed to keep upright, but the spinning in his head worsened instantly. _One of these days Standish, you are going to learn to keep your mouth shut._ The words were only in his head, but he was eerily certain it was Chris's voice he was hearing.

John shoved him back to the floor. "Sit tight. You'll find out your lottery prize soon enough."

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JD looked up from the laptop when a large shadow cast over it. He reached up and took the offered soft drink. "I can't get a decent shot of these guys on any of the street cameras Buck, and they haven't been able to get me a feed from the bank video yet."

"Stop beating yourself up kid. Wouldn't have helped anybody if you'd been in there with him."

The young agent didn't see it that way. "You don't know that. Two of us in there might have been able to stop this."

"Or might have got both of you and some of the others in there killed."

That thought didn't appease him. "If I hadn't blown it, Ezra wouldn't have been in there when this started."

"And we wouldn't have known about it, and for all we know, this could have gone down a lot worse. You know our boy is in there keeping everyone cool and together."

"More likely putting himself in the middle of things." He rubbed at his eyes, tired from staring at the screen for so long. "What would help is if I could get anything to let us figure out who these guys are. At least then we might have a fighting chance."

"Well, Nathan is looking for cases with similar MO's and Chris is looking into what we can do about the demands. So how can I help you?"

JD shook his head dismissively. "You can't. Nobody can. There's nothing to work with."

"We are not about to let you give up on yourself that easy kid. So I'll ask again, how can I help?"

This time JD smiled tentatively. "By telling me this is all gonna work out ok?"

It took more effort than it should for Buck to put on his broad grin. "Of course it is. Always does, doesn't it?" Seeing the phony confidence wasn't convincing either of them, Buck tried again. "Look JD, no question about it, Ezra can find his way into more kinds of trouble that anyone else I've ever met. But he also has a God-given gift for getting himself out of it. He's like the cat with nine lives."

"Problem with that is I'm pretty sure he long since passed that number."

"Buck, JD. Over here." Chris's call had them both moving quickly.

"What happened?"

Chris was looking toward Nathan, waving him as well. Josiah was close enough to hear, even though he was staying put by the phone, ready to make contact again. Vin had to settle for communicating by headset, having taken up a position on a nearby roof top, ready to take a shot if needed, and praying he wouldn't have to.

"Nothing happened inside – yet. Travis pulled all the strings he can, and is still working on it, but you know giving in on the demands isn't likely to happen."

Not the news they were hoping for, but not even remotely unexpected. "So we just sit out here and hope for the best?"

Chris shook his head. "I take it you haven't found any footage?" The dejected look answered the question. "Relax JD – you can't find what isn't there."

Nathan news was every bit as unsettling. "There is one group I found. They're credited with three bank jobs over the last few years. Stall tactics while clearing out the vault and safety deposit boxes. Hit at midday, locking things up like this job. No concerns about the number hostages." His hesitation told the others there was more. After a moment, he confirmed the fears. "Killed a guard at the first, three hostages at the second and one more on the last job. Different circumstances for each, but every job has had a kill."

"Son of a bitch." Buck didn't like the way the odds had shifted.

Vin had been listening to the conversation. "Haven't we got anything on who they are?"

"Not enough. It's at least a partially different crew each time. First robbery had 4, next 3 and then 4 again. And two of those 4 ended up dead at scene."

That bit of news was the first encouraging thing Chris had heard since this started. "That must have given the cops something to go on."

Nathan shook his head. "Not really. Local hoods. Nothing to indicate they were part of a bigger gang, or even that they knew each other."

"Recruited for the job then. Shit, no help."

Josiah wasn't so sure and was about to say so when the phone rang. He grabbed for is quickly. "Sanchez."

"Have you got what we asked for?"

"Things are being arranged. As I'm sure you can imagine, these matters take time."

"You wouldn't be trying to stall while planning some kind of rescue now, would you Josiah?"

The price on being tripped up was too high, and Josiah using every trick he knew to try to maintain some control of the situation. "We are doing everything we can to get you what you –"

"Now, that is disappointing. I thought we had agreed to be honest with each other. Here, let me start by sharing a bit of information. The hostages have been split into groups, so if you are thinking of a strike force, it won't work. Not a chance in hell you can get to them all in time. Or any of them."

That wasn't surprising. Nathan had shown him the summary on the other robberies, and that move had been part of all of them. "I'm doing what I can. It takes time."

"You figure out who we are?" John teased at him.

"Not precisely. We do know this isn't your first job."

"Very good."

"If any of those people get hurt, I can promise you it will be your last."

John wasn't as amused by the turn.

"Thirty minutes. If you need more time after that, it will come at a cost. A high cost. And in case you don't think I'm serious…" the sound of a gunshot was the last thing he heard before the phone went dead.

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 _tbc_


	4. Chapter 4

"I would wager that venting your anger in such a manner will not win you any points in the negations." Ezra stared John down. "My understanding, limited though it may be, is that a show of good faith and remaining calm throughout is of primary importance." He looked pointedly at the shattered phone. "I would venture to say you have made your task more difficult."

John turned, pointing the weapon directly at Ezra's head. "You volunteering to be a living target instead? No, I didn't think so. Keep the other side off balance. First rule of negotiations. Would have expected a smart dude like you who has watched so many movies on the subject to know that."

Ezra hoped it wouldn't dawn on his opponent that his team would be every bit as determined to keep these lowlifes off balance as well. "What I have learned that the smart move is to keep the line of communications open, and not to risk incurring the wrath that will destroy you."

"Plenty of other phones here, and I've got a basket full of cellphones there, so I don't see a problem there. And we have no intention of being destroyed. Trust me on that. So, you have any other suggestions you want to make?"

"Several, but I believe they can wait for a more appropriate time."

"First smart thing you've said." John grinned as he turned the gun away. He looked down at his watch again, then spun his back to the hostages as he returned to the vault.

Ezra leaned back against the desk again, stretching his sore leg out and rubbing absent-mindedly at the knee. He was tired of sitting on the floor, doing nothing. The men were getting restless, and he wondered if the job was taking longer than anticipated. More likely, there were beginning to give consideration to their escape options, and quite possibly realizing how limited they were.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"I prefer to consider my actions as an effort to keep their anger and attention focused on one person."

"In other words – yes." Sylvia looked at him with a mix of concern and sympathy. "You're taking a foolish risk, setting yourself as his target."

"That does seem to be something I excel at. Have no fear madam. I have been in worse situations and remain present to tell the tale." _Although sooner or later, I am going to cut that deck of cards once too often._ He could see no point in sharing that thought with the others.

"He was right about one thing – there is more to you than meets the eye."

Ezra grinned lightly before admonishing her with a soft stare and tilt of his head. "That assumption would be best kept quiet madam. There is no point in encouraging the delusion to the point it may result in false conclusions which could prove, shall we say unpleasant." She nodded her understanding, a hint of fear colouring her features.

He closed his eyes, allowing himself a moment to try to evaluate what had happened so far. He'd have enough experience staring down the barrel of a gun to be able to look past the immediate threat. Doing so now had given him a better look at the watch John was consulting far too often. It hadn't come as a revelation to Ezra to see it wasn't a routine time piece. A wrist phone. He'd been monitoring something, likely texts, on a phone. The possibilities made his head spin even more than the hits he'd taken did. First, there was an outside contact here. That presented a host of problems. It could be that he wasn't the mastermind he presented himself to be. If someone elsewhere was controlling the issue, not only did it mean there was another perspective to deal with, but there was an influence in this who didn't have a direct hand in the pot and might well be more reckless as a result. And, if John was getting information from outside, and there was little doubt on that, anything that was common knowledge out there, was now known on the inside. Ezra could no longer be sure his identity was safe.

He was startled back to the present by John's return.

"OK hero, time to cash in your lottery ticket." Ezra opened his eyes, glancing quickly at the wall clock. Evidently, he been processing scenarios much longer than he realized as a half hour had passed. "On your feet. You get to be our messenger."

"So your show of power did cause damage to the phones?"

"We were planning on the personal touch this time. Make sure the cops remember there are hostages in here."

Ezra stood slowly, stretching his stiff muscles. He was feeling more of the tension than he had realized. He tried to offer a confident smile to those still seated around him, but from their reactions, he was guessing even his best poker face wasn't doing the trick any longer.

"I have little doubt they are fully cognisant of the fact."

"Relax. Just want a bit of face to face explanation. You're gonna talk to this negotiator they got. Sanchez." Ezra was grateful for the fact he was not going to have to explain himself to a stranger. Josiah would be far more likely to understand any underlying messages he could get through. Of course, dealing with him under these circumstances was a stress he didn't relish placing on the big man's shoulders.

"Now, just in case you had any ideas, I'm going to explain a couple of things. You try to bolt, to not come back, and I kill three people in here, including the pretty lady who should be going outside now. I have feeling that would be incentive to someone like you." Ezra nodded his understanding, hoping it reassured Sylvia and the others. "You go off script, try to tell them anything outside of what I tell you to say, and I kill her first."

"If you expect me to work from memory, we may have an issue."

John handed Ezra an ear-bud. "Stick this in your ear. All you have to do is pass along what I tell you to. I'll be able to hear you too, so don't get cute"

This was limiting his options, but there was no real room for discussion. Ezra walked toward the door, turning back to the others. "I will do nothing to endanger any of you – you have my word." The last thing he saw before heading out was a confident smile of support from Sylvia.

7-7-7-7-7-7-7

"Everybody hold your fire." The SWAT commander was issuing the command through the communications system at the same time Chris was shouting it out. Every eye was glued to the door which closed quickly behind Ezra. He looked up, smiling at the assembled crowd. He forced himself to walk slowly, trying to hide the slight limp he had earned inside. It was harder than he expected to hide his relief at seeing familiar faces. It became even more difficult to maintain his detachment when Josiah and Chris both stepped from behind the barriers to approach.

"No. Please stay where you are." He called out. In a quieter voice he added "I know that wasn't script, but I am a bit anxious."

"Tell 'em who you are and ask them if the demands have been met."

"My name is Ezra Standish. I am one of the hostages. The gentleman you have been speaking with would like to know if his demands have been fulfilled."

"He's got an ear-bud in Chris. He's being told what to say." Vin had been able to see it through his spare rifle scope before turning his attention back his aim on the bank. As much as he wanted to keep focused on Ezra, he knew what the job was.

"I'm Josiah Sanchez. Chris Larabee and I are working on it. Most of it is in place, and the bus in almost here. The money is still being prepared for transfer, but we are almost set. Can you tell us how they want to proceed?" _Or anything else_ , he added silently.

"When the bus arrives, it is to be parked at the side entrance. If there is anyone on board, hostages will die."

Chris nodded slowly. "Understood. Is everyone OK in there?"

Ezra stood quietly for a minute, waiting. "At this time, none of the hostages have been injured."

"Looks like that's not true." Josiah raised a hand to his own cheek, then pointed at Ezra. "You OK?"

"This is nothing."

 _"_ _Careful hero – that wasn't in the script."_

"Reflex, I assure you. I shall watch what I say from now on." Ezra answered loudly. He began fidgeting with his hands. "Please, do not punish anyone for my lapse in communication protocol."

 _"_ _Shut up. Any more slips and someone in here will pay."_ Ezra nodded. " _We expect the bus in 20 minutes. Cleared route to the interstate. Any helicopters or drones and people die."_

The order was repeated verbatim. Chris knew from the style, or more appropriately the lack of it that Ezra was staying on script. Clearly there was a threat if he varied. But, the nervous movements, the tapping of fingers, and reaching toward his ear only to quickly bring his hand back down again. The fact that those were a message was obvious to him. What the message was, on the other hand, was a mystery.

" _OK Hero – almost done. Convince them not to mess with us, or the results won't be pretty. Then turn around and come on back."_

"These men are deadly serious Mr. Sanchez. I implore you, do not jam them up. They will kill people if you fail to adhere to every signal instruction." He turned and approached the building, watching the gunmen who were watching his every move. He was about halfway back when he was ordered to stop and turn around.

 _"_ _Sorry about this Standish. Like I said, I think under other circumstances things might have been different."_

Ezra wasn't listening. He focused his gaze on Josiah and Chris, who had both been making their way to the barracade and now stopped, alerted to the development. They turned back, both making eye contact. Although he couldn't see the rest of the team, he knew they were there, watching the scene unfold. He wished more than anything he'd been able to find a way to spare them this moment. Ezra scanned the area, seeking out the faces of his friends, finally focusing on Chris and Josiah before mouthing out as clearly as he could "I'm sorry." Before he finished, a single shot rang out from the bank, and his body jerked forward as he fell to the ground.

M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7

 _tbc_


	5. Chapter 5

Time stopped ever so briefly as everyone tried to process exactly what it was they were seeing. Instinct and reflex overtook his conscious actions as Vin tried to find the source of the shot. He had no line on where the bullet came from. Ezra's body spun as it fell, telling him it was likely a side shot rather that straight behind him, but from his angle he had no clear view at that window. He could see the blinds swaying but had no direct line of site. He kept looking, not wanting to let his eyes go back to the scene unfolding below. He heard Chris's shouted curse, and Josiah's anguished cry. The reactions of others were assaulting him through his earpiece. He knew what he would see when he looked down and refused to allow his gaze to shift back over to it.

JD screamed obscenities that Buck had never heard. Ones he wasn't even sure he understood, although the emotion of them was evident. Lost in his own stunned distress he was almost too shocked to register the younger man's surge forward and was barely able to grab him at the last second. "Don't be an idiot. You can't help him getting yourself shot."

"We can't just leave him lying there. It ain't right! What if he's still alive?"

"We can't help him by being stupid." Buck looked at the unmoving form on the sidewalk. He had no sense of hope but wasn't about to let JD see that yet. "We keep our heads. You hear me? JD – you hear me?"

He took in a large gulp of air before responding. "We get the bastards Buck. They don't walk away from this. They don't even crawl away."

"Damn straight."

Chris hadn't moved. He stared at the body across the road. It might as well have been a million miles away for all the good he could do. Ezra had known it was going to happen. From the moment he was told to turn back he knew. Hell, he probably had figured it out before the command. Maybe even before coming outside. That was what the apology was for. For getting himself into this position. Damned fool.

"I told you that you could find trouble faster than any man alive. Why in God's name did you have to prove me right?"

He could hear the phone ringing behind him but failed to register the significance until he heard Josiah's gravelly voice. "That was an unbelievably stupid move on your part."

"Kind of insures you understand we mean business. 20 minutes. Next time two die. Then four. Get the idea? And if you try to recover his body, someone dies sooner. Want him to stay there as a reminder." The connection was cut.

"They are not getting out of there." Josiah was staring at Chris for confirmation. "We can't allow that."

"What was he trying to tell us?" Chris hadn't averted his eyes. The image was seared in his brain, so looking away wouldn't help.

"When he said he was sorry?"

Chris shook his head, finally turning to face what was left of his team. "No, before. He was trying to talk to us without saying anything. Buck, JD, get over here." Like Chris, they couldn't seem to look away from the horror in front of them. "No. Focus on me. He did this to get us a message. I don't doubt that he had a good idea what was going to happen, so we damn sure better make sure it wasn't a waste. What was he telling us?"

"He was being told what to say." Buck pointed out.

"But there's more than one way to deliver a message. All that fidgeting? Ezra doesn't fidget." JD refused to move to the past tense.

"He knew what was coming." Nathan spoke. "Maybe that's what had him nervous – off his game? Knowing you were about to die without a damned thing you could do about it would have that effect on anyone."

"No, the kid's right. Ezra was moving his hands around near his watch and up to his head. What does that mean?" No one answered Chris. "Come on – think."

"'I'll watch what I say.'" Nathan quoted. "Ezra wouldn't talk like that. Too simple."

"His watch. Why is he telling us about his watch?" Chris looked to them for ideas.

"Vin?" He really would have preferred not to ask this, especially over the open communicators where the rest of the team would hear it all. "I know it ain't gonna be easy, but can you use your scope to focus in on his watch? Maybe he set it to something. Can't figure out anything else."

Vin's reluctance was obvious in his voice, even coming through the earbuds, but he agreed to try. He took the spare site from the bag and brought it to his eye. He scanned across the road and toward Ezra. He was determined to view nothing more than what was needed, not wanting to see a close up of the blood or the empty eyes that would be looking back. Ezra had fallen facing them with his hands out, almost confirming the idea that there was something to be seen. Vin moved his view along, scanning up from the highly polished shoes, over the tailored suit pants and moving slowly toward the hands. He narrowed his gaze on the watch and stared for several seconds. "I don't see anything special Chris. It looks like it's accurate, so he didn't stop it at a time. I can't seen anything diff – son of a bitch! Chris. He's moving. He's alive."

7-7-7-7-7-7-7

Chris grabbed at the set of binoculars sitting at the control site desk, but found they had already been snatched by Buck, who was focusing on the still form. He was silent for a moment, then broke into a broad grin.

"He's moving his fingers. He's waving at us! Only Ezra would think to con someone into believing he was dead!" His grin faded almost as quickly. "He's real pale Chris. That shot didn't miss him all together, and I'm guessing it wasn't just a graze."

"We make any move and not only will they shoot hostages, they'll fire into him if they think he's still alive, so everybody stay put." Chris wasn't surprised by the curses and growls he got as response, but no one could challenge the truth if the statement. "Vin, can you tell if he still has the earbud in." There was a moment of silence as they waited for the answer.

"I don't see it around him. Chris, Buck's right. He doesn't look good. I don't think we have a lot of time for this to play out."

Chris made his way over to the side of the barricades, getting as close to his fallen comrade as he could. "Ezra?" It was a controlled whisper, loud enough – he hoped – to be heard by only the intended subject. "Don't move. They think you're dead, and if that changes, you will be. Can you hear me? If you can, try to give us some kind of sign." He waited, barely breathing himself for something, anything, that would give them some hope. It was several seconds before he saw what he'd been waiting for - a slow wink.

"You are one stubborn son of a bitch. OK, stay still. We're gonna get you outta there." _Somehow_ , he added to himself. "Ezra, were you trying to tell us something about the watch? Is there something about time?"

Ezra didn't know how much longer he was going to be able to stay awake. To stay alive. The pain in his back had been excruciating at first, but now was barely a dull throb. As much as he would have liked to believe that was because it wasn't serious, he knew the truth was the exact opposite. He was going into shock. His body, his reactions, were shutting down. He needed to try to get his information to Chris and had very little time to do so.

He forced himself to focus on what Chris was asking. _Yes, I was trying to send you a message. What else would I be fussing for? Now the problem is how to answer without moving_. He slowly moved his hand, keeping it the movement hidden, and offered a thumbs up gesture for what he thought might have been the first time in his life. The salute was so much more satisfying, and better suited his style and personal…

"Ezra, focus." Chris's voice hissed at him, bringing him back to the moment. "Are they lying about the timing?"

How to tell him that the leader was wearing some kind of video watch. Ezra was sure the man was in communication with someone on the outside. Either an accomplice or an informant. Someone who was telling him what was happening on the outside. Hopefully not someone who might share the fact this interaction was going on. Focusing his waning strength to his hands he cautiously used his index and middle fingers to create a 'V', hoping against hope someone would get video from that. He really must consider teaching the others sign language at some point.

"Two? Two what Ezra? Gunmen? Hours?"

He shook his hands slightly, holding the V up again.

"Peace?" Josiah's voice came through Chris's earpiece. "Why peace?"

Chris whispered the question to Ezra, who had to fight to control the sigh. That had to have been Josiah's question. Only he would take that spin.

"A 'V' Ezra? JD thinks you mean V." Ezra offered a half thumbs up again, barely able to lift his hand by this point. "Vin? Why are you asking about Vin?"

Damn. That hadn't occurred to him. He weakly pointed at the watch again, his hand dropping to the pavement before he could actually complete the action.

"No. Damn it! Ezra, stay awake. Stay with us. Ezra." Chris watched for any reaction, any hint of movement. He stood shakily after several seconds of stillness and made his way back to the team.

"He's not moving, not responding at all."

"Don't give up yet Chris." Vin's voice came through the earpieces. "He's breathing. It's shallow, but I can see it with the scope. We gotta hurry though."

It was almost impossible for Chris to focus on what was going on. "How much time is left?" He looked at his own watch as he asked, trying to put that image together with whatever Ezra had worked so hard to share. Nothing made sense.

"About 14 minutes." Nathan voice was subdued. "That isn't a lot of time to do much of anything, especially since we have no idea what the hell we are supposed to be doing."

"I think I know." JD's was hesitant. He honestly didn't know whether his conclusion made any sense, or whether he was just beyond desperate to find a way to help the partner he felt he had failed. "It's a long shot, but it's the only thing that fits. Well, at least I think –"

"For God's sake JD, shut up and tell us."

JD looked at Buck with just a hint of a smile in response to the conflicting order.

"A video watch. I think Ezra is trying to tell us the guy has a video watch."

"That is one hell of a leap JD. Why?" Chris wasn't about to completely dismiss any idea at this point, however ludicrous it seemed at first glance.

"Well, no other watch thing makes sense, and V could stand for video, but it was something else he said. 'Don't jam them up?' Have you ever heard Ezra use that phrase before? And 'follow every **signal** instruction?'. At first, I thought he just misspoke – you know, because of nerves. But I think it was on purpose."

Chris held up a hand to stop the enthusiastic tirade. "OK, whoa. You think he wants us to jam some kind of a signal? Can we even do that?"

Instead of answering, JD bolted over to the communications van and leapt inside. It took only seconds for him to find what he was looking for and was back on the street with some gadget Chris knew he would never understand. "This would work. It will shut down everybody around for a couple of blocks, but it will close them down."

"We can't shut down our own communications JD. We need to be able to move in."

"We'll be fine. We can go to a basic frequency, beyond the range for this. They won't be using anything that low on the spectrum, since they probably are using a stronger signal."

"Why stronger?" Buck asked, completely at a loss to follow what was being said.

"Cause they have to be communicating with someone outside, since they don't need it to talk to each other. So, stronger for more distance."

Josiah looked down at his phone to check the timer. "How is any of this going to help? We've got about 10 minutes."

"I don't know, but I'd guess Ezra figures these guys are counting on whoever is on the other end of that link. If so, and they lose contact, it might be enough to put them off balance."

Josiah was as desperate as any of them for a solution, but this didn't feel to secure. "Sounds like an awful lot of guessing Chris. Guessing that could get those folks in there killed. If they are getting orders, and we shut them down, that may start them killing people as well."

JD had been thinking the same thing. "I could set it as a feedback. Blast an electronic feed in there. Amplify it to be loud enough to blow out the whole thing. The sound would be one hell of a distraction."

"It's just a small video watch. How can that work?"

Confidence radiated from JD's smile. "Trust me Buck, I can make it work. Set off everything electronic in there. Folks may have to buy new phones after, but I think that's a sacrifice they'd be willing to make."

Chris stepped away, moving back to where he'd been talking to Ezra. His agent looked even paler, something Chris wouldn't have thought possible. "Ezra, can you hear me?" There was no reaction. "Ezra come on. We have a plan and need your help."

 _My help,_ Ezra thought. _I am within viewing distance of the Pearly Gates, and you issue a plea for my assistance. I can't say I ever imagined you would be so desperate Chris._

Chris wasn't certain, but he thought he saw Ezra blink. Wishful thinking, maybe, but it was all the encouragement he needed. "We are going to jam the signal Ezra. That's what you wanted, right?" Was that another blink? "It's going to give us the chance we need to storm the place, while they're confused." Yes, that was definitely a blink. Probably. "Ezra, how many are in there?"

 _Seriously. What was wrong with the questions I could merely confirm. Now you ask one I need to answer?_ He slowly forced his hand into a fist, then let three fingers fall forward. _I sincerely hope that is your last question Chris, because I can assure you it is my last answer._ Ezra's hand went limp as the darkness overtook him.

M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7

tbc


	6. Chapter 6

"You folks have 5 minutes until you get to witness the next execution. I am sure Mr. Rubenstein and Mrs. Talbot would prefer to forego this part of the plan."

"The bus in on the way. There is a lot of traff-"

"Spare me the excuses. Four minutes until the doors open again." He slammed down the phone.

"OK, in three minutes we tell them the bus is here. It's just up the block now. Once he opens up the door we let loose electronic hell and move in. SWAT is in position to fire teargas in, and the second team is ready to blow the back door."

"Locals OK with us taking over the operation?" Buck didn't really care that much about the answer, unless it meant someone might challenge them at the last minute.

"The second they shot Ezra, this became an ATF case. Morton is smart enough to go along without needing to be told that." Chris looked as his men. "JD, you ready to jam the signal."

The young man looked decidedly nervous but made a valiant effort to hide it. "Just waiting for you to say go. I can do this Chris."

"Never had any doubts."

They had debated the plan again in the limited time they had once everything else was in place. The instant the door was opened, the signal would be incepted. JD had played with the frequency, and if all went to plan, not only would the link go down, but there would be a blast of noise from the feedback. With luck, the thieves all had earpieces like the one Ezra had been wearing, making the shock even stronger – more than enough to give the SWAT team the chance to get inside and take care of business. It was also the one of the biggest sticking points to the plan. Ezra might still be wearing his earpiece.

"What will it do to him, Nathan? Hurt like he is?"

"Can't say Buck. The jolt sure as hell isn't going to help him any."

That had been a key part of the debate, until Josiah pointed out the obvious. "He'd say go for it. He walked out of that bank knowing this might happen. If it will save the hostages, it's what he'd say to do."

"More than that Josiah." Chris would have preferred to not be supporting the claim, but knew it was true. "It's what he **did** say to do. He's been using what's left of his strength to get this info to us. We owe it to him, to them, to do what we have to."

They finally, reluctantly, agreed that while it was a thin plan at best, in the limited time they had it was the best option they could devise.

Josiah didn't want to risk that the phone might not be answered, since these guys were not expecting their demands to be met. He reached for the megaphone a bellowed out the news.

"Bus is here. Don't do anything. The bus has arrived." There were several tense moments during which Chris was sure no one breathed. He knew he didn't. The blinds finally moved slightly, then fell back into position. Josiah stared down at the phone, willing it to ring.

All actions outside came to a stop at the first sign of action at the door. The blinds swayed slightly as the lock was released. A few seconds later the door swung open. That was the moment a high-pitched electronic shriek echoed through the bank, clearly heard by all those outside. Everyone in the building instinctively reached to cover their ears, and fifteen seconds of only barely controlled chaos followed.

At the instant he could see there was no one blocking his shot, the SWAT officer stationed nearest fired the first teargas cannister into the building, followed by another one through the front window. The shattered window shredded the blinds that had blocked Vin's view of the interior. He instantly drew a bead on one of the criminals inside and took him out with a single shot as the perp struggled to raise his weapon against one of the hostages. The gunman who had been at the door was momentarily blinded by the flash of the canister being fired and was taken down quickly by a charging Buck Wilmington. The only sound he was able to make was a shriek of pain as he hit the ground with his arm being violently twisted behind him. Buck wasn't certain due to the noise deadening earplugs he had on but was fairly sure the shout had been proceeded by the snap of a bone. The electronic noise had stopped after about 5 seconds, but the effect lingered enough to give the hostages the distraction they needed, despite their own discomfort, to swarm the final member of the trio, taking full advantage of the confusion to add a few well aimed kicks and punches as they piled onto him. The cops had some difficulty in coming to his aid, not that they were in any hurry to do so.

 _Ezra was aware enough of his surroundings to know something was going on, but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what it was. The pain had subsided to a point if was more of a nuisance than anything else. Just a sensation of discomfort that kept the overall numbness slightly at bay. His latest effort to move his fingers had been futile. At least, he thought it had. He simply couldn't tell anymore._

 _Just as he was ready to surrender to the encroaching darkness he felt his body vibrating. Almost humming. In all of the tales he'd heard of fading to he afterlife, that had never been a part of the process. Light and music, yes. Vibrations no. Before he could dwell on the confusing detail as muffled squealing assaulted him. Even though it made no sense, the sound seemed to be coming from inside him, coursing through him._

 _He couldn't tell how long it lasted, but when it ended, the confusion around him was even more apparent. He heard gunshots and shouting. There were screams and shrieks and a cacophony of utter chaos echoing in his head. He tried to move, to turn to see what was going on, but his body refused to cooperate. He couldn't tell if that was due to an inability to move, or simply the lack of any strength to do so. Summoning what little fight he had left in him, he struggled to stay awake at least long enough to find out which side won._

It was difficult to fight the impulse to run back to Ezra, but Chris knew Nathan was with him, and had to let that be enough for the moment. He scanned the room for any indication the confrontation was still not over, but seeing nothing that triggered his instincts, he allowed himself to bring it down a notch. He removed his own plugs and took the three quick steps needed to bring him next to Buck, who was in the process of snarling out his prisoner's rights.

"Make sure he can hear you properly, and that he understands them Buck. No lawyer is going to get this bastard off on a technicality."

"How's Ezra?"

The question caused the suspect to turn his head in surprise. "Ezra – you know that arrogant jerk?"

Buck pulled at the cuffs, resulting in another sharp gasp of pain. "That arrogant jerk happens to be a federal agent, and one of the best friends I've got. You the bastard who shot him?"

"Don't answer that." Chris warned, still worried about making sure they had the case they needed.

John sneered. "What, somebody killed your little playmate? What a shame."

Buck pressed him firmly against the wall. "You do understand that you are about a dozen kinds of dead right now don't you?"

"Nathan hasn't said anything, but I heard him calling for the medics, so he's hanging in." Chris finally allowed himself a quick look outside.

"Go. Check on him." Buck moved to haul his prisoner outside. "I promise not to kill this guy yet."

The addition of the last word was enough to cause Chris to look back at his long-time friend. Convincing himself that Buck wasn't entirely serious in the threat, he jogged back to Nathan's side. He had to swallow hard to choke back his reaction when he got there.

"Nathan?" he gasped out the question in without daring to speak it.

"Weak. Barely breathing. He's coughing up blood."

The medics had already gently rolled Ezra to his side, confirming the bullet wound and placing pressure on the sight. Nathan initial relief at seeing only a small amount of blood pooled below disappeared with Ezra's first cough. The oxygen mask was spattered with blood flecks. When a second, stronger cough coated the interior Nathan realized that blood had been settling into his lungs. He was drowning in it.

"Ezra, can you hear me?"

"Standish, answer the man."

A rapid fluttering of eyelashes was the only response they got. It took several seconds for the movement to stop, and Chris was looking into rapidly glazing eyes. "You did good Ezra. You hear me? We got them all Ezra. It's over."

"Hostages?" The gasped word was followed by another series of violent coughs and gasps of pain.

Chris glanced over to the building where people were already beginning to be escorted out.

"Everybody is fine Ezra. No, keep your eyes open and look at me."

The medics pushed Chris away to have better access to their patient. Reluctantly, he allowed them to do so. "You keep fighting Standish. You aren't allowed to give up – you understand?"

There was no answer. Ezra's body tensed as pain arched through him when the medics shifted him, going slack a second later.

"Ezra? You hear me?" Nathan prodded carefully, trying to get a response.

"He's not breathing – we need to move him now." Nathan cleared back to allow the experts to take over, stepping next to the rest of the team who had collected near by. His planned briefing was cut short before he was able to start.

"No, oh God no." Josiah was closest and was able to grab the woman running toward Ezra. "No."

"Easy. Slow down. You can't get to him now ma'am. Let them work."

She gasped out, fighting to catch her breath as she sobbed. "It should be me. That should be me."

It took more force than it should have to turn her away from staring as Ezra was loaded onto a stretcher and rushed to the ambulance. "I understand you're upset, but you can't blame yourself. We know Ezra, and I can bet he did what he could to make sure they picked him to be the spokesman. You can't blame yourself for the luck of the draw."

"Actually, I can. He changed places with me. We had numbers. He had nine, I had one. He switched. Oh God, do you think he knew this would happen? He knew he was going to die?"

"You don't know Ezra all that well." Vin tried with no success to give her a reassuring smile. "He isn't dead yet, and he doesn't like to let the bad guys win. Now, you need to let the medics look you over and talk to the police. We'll keep you informed about Ezra."

"Yes, of course. I – I want to thank him. I –"

JD took her hand and began leading her to join the others. "I can promise you he won't want you making a fuss, but I'm sure he'd like to see you." He watched her being taken into a nearby building for privacy before rejoining the team in time to hear Josiah.

"She was right. He knew what was coming. You could see it."

Tempting as it was to put on a brave face, Nathan knew they were all aware of how bad it looked. "It's bad guys. I don't know that we're in time."

"He's too stubborn to give up." Vin spoke with far more confidence than he felt.

Chris turned Nathan to look at him. "Did he hear me? Does he know that the hostages are alright?" There was no hiding the desperation in his voice.

"I don't know Chris. I can't say for sure."

JD looked at him in confusion. "What difference does it make?"

The bleak answer came from a different source. "Because," Josiah spoke quietly, "Ezra deserves to know he saved them. He deserves to die knowing he saved them."

Vin had moved back to where Ezra had been, eyeing the small pool of blood. He reached down beside it, pointing at something next to the spot.

"He was on top of it. The earpiece must have fallen when he was hit. Muffled the sound for him. Guess that's the first break we got in all of this."

Buck looked at it, then back over to where the suspects were being loaded into a police van. His body was tense with the desire to break something, or someone. The absence of a suitable target was too much to deal with. "Where are they being taken?" he snarled.

"Relax Buck. Like I told Morton – the bastards shot an ATF agent – they're ours." Buck grinned ferally at Chris's words. "OK, let me rephrase that. They are being taken to ATF headquarters. Travis texted me when this started that we don't get to interrogate them."

"Like hell we don't!"

"Not up for debate." Chris countered. "This is going to be done by the book."

"I can do by the book."

Even under the circumstances, the comment got several laughs. "You haven't even read the book Buck." JD chided his best friend. "And if you had the book, you'd use it to beat the guy senseless."

"So we just let this whole thing go. Too bad, so sad? Ezra's gone and that's it, move on?"

"No Buck, of course not." The adrenaline rush was wearing off on all of them, and shock settling in. Chris knew things would be said that couldn't be taken back if things weren't diffused in a hurry. He figured he might as well be the first one to say some of them. "He's not gone, so we **all** need to drop that crap right off. We are going to have our role in this, but we are going to make sure it plays out right. You can't be a part of that, then walk out of here now. Take some leave and step away, because nobody is going to fuck this up – understood?"

Two men stared each other down for half a minute before Buck glanced away. "Well we sure as hell aren't doing anyone any good just standing here. What's next?"

There was an audible sigh of relief throughout the team. "Nathan, you get to the hospital. You'll be able to translate whatever the doctors tell us about his condition. Josiah, talk to the witnesses. Start with that woman. I want to know what she meant about Ezra switching numbers. If he did what it sounds like, I am going to rip a layer of skin off him when he's strong enough. Then I'm gonna put him in for a medal."

"Can't imagine he'll be too pleased with either response." Josiah smiled as he turned to follow orders.

"Vin, team up with the SWAT guys and find out what you can about what went down when we moved in. Who was where, what they did – you know the questions to ask."

JD was already mentally working on what he knew his assignment would be. "I'm gonna work backwards on tracing that signal. If we can figure out who they were taking orders from…"

"Exactly. In the meantime Buck, see if you can get any leads on the electronic equipment they were using. Where it came from might open a trail. JD can help you with that." Buck nodded before asking the obvious.

"What are you gonna be doing?"

"Convincing the judge that we are calm, professional, and level headed enough to talk to the suspects without killing them."

"Yeah – good luck with that."

M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7

tbc


	7. Chapter 7

Judge Travis stared at the leader of his best team as if the man had just grown another head. Although the fact was, that would have been less surprising to him that what Larabee had just proposed.

"I'm sorry. Did you just calmly and in what I assume you think was a rational moment tell me that I should even consider letting you and your team take over the interrogation of the man that shot Standish? More precisely, you want me to let you and Wilmington go into the room with him, alone?"

"Yes." Chris gave what he hoped was a sincere smile.

"At what point did you come to the conclusion that I was as insane as the rest of you obviously are?"

"Judge, you know we aren't going to hurt the man."

"I do?"

Chris was glad the others weren't here. He could imagine the smartass answers that would have come from the team.

When he got no response, Travis sighed quietly before proceeding.

"Nothing has come back on his prints, although I have trouble believing he's not in the system somewhere. Wish we could get results as fast in real life as they do on those damned TV show. The other man you arrested is Roger Tamblyn. He's got a long list of arrests, mostly robbery and B&E stuff, with a decided tendency toward violence. This will undoubtedly put him away for life. Dead guy was his partner in a lot of those."

"He won't know anything about the guy in charge. That's not the way this would work."

"He barely knows anything about any of this. He's practically begging to cut a deal, but he's got nothing to give us. Even he only knows this guy as 'John'."

None of that was surprising. It certainly matched what they knew about prior jobs.

"Which is why I need to talk to this 'John' directly. All we want are a few simple answers."

"Ones that will be admissible in court?"

"If need be, then yes, they would stand up in court. But I expect that our mystery man in there will end up confessing and saving us that trouble."

That wasn't exactly the comforting response the judge had hoped for. He didn't expect it, but he had hoped for it. "Do I want to know why he would confess?"

"Logic. We've got him dead to rights, with a ton of witnesses, including cops. There isn't a chance of anything but a guilty verdict on the attempted murder charge, not to mention the rest."

"Don't you mean murder?"

Chris went pale at Travis's words. "Murder. Shit – have you heard from the hospital?"

"No, Chris. Not Ezra. Sorry. I meant on the previous robberies."

It took a moment for his heartrate to slow to a more reasonable rate. "Jesus, Oren, don't do that to me."

"I take it you've had no updates from Jackson?"

Taking another minute to make sure he sounded under control, Chris turned away slightly, hoping the judge wouldn't be able to see the stress, not that he wouldn't know it was there. "He called when he got to the hospital. The bullet ripped into Ezra's lung, nicking an artery in the process. He was bleeding into the lung the whole time, so he's basically been drowning in his own blood." He paused, fighting the nausea that threatened to shatter the illusion of control. "Nathan called it Pulmonary Edema. They have to suction out the blood, then try to repair the damage."

Travis fought his own reaction as well, knowing it wouldn't help matters. "He's a tenacious little bastard Chris. Standish fights with all he has, and if anyone can cheat death, it will be him."

"How many times do you think he can do that? Bad enough he puts himself on the line every damn day, now he can't even walk into a bank without ending up with a bullet in him."

"According to Sanchez, he traded places with someone else. Took the risk on himself."

"Hardly fits with the selfish SOB he presents himself to be, does it?"

Travis's grin was genuine. "Think that fella is long since history. IF he ever really existed in the first place." The smile faded. "Look, Chris. Go to the hospital. You should be with your men right now. It sounds like you're going to need each other."

"What they need is some answers. We can't do Ezra any good sitting around some waiting room, but it might just help him if we can let him know we figured out who is behind all of this. He's the one who figured out there is someone on the outside, and we owe it to him to have the answers when he wakes up to hear them."

"What makes you think you can get any information out of this 'John' character? You sure as hell can't be offering him any deals. And I doubt you can play him."

"There is one deal we could put on the table. He'll be up for the death penalty for at least two of the other robberies, and if – if Ezra dies, he'll be on death row before he knows what happened."

"And you'd be ok with trading that away? All of you would?"

"This guy isn't the brains behind the operation. I don't much care if he rots in a 6 by 8 cell in solitary for the rest of his life if we can lock his boss away in the one next to him."

It was a safe bet that one way or the other, Larabee was going to find a way to talk to this guy and get his answers. At least if it was done through proper channels, there was a better chance no one would be losing their job over the techniques applied.

"OK – I'll arrange to have him transferred here from city lock-up."

Chris's head snapped around. "City? What the hell is he doing there? Morton said he'd be brought here."

"Your detective friend was overruled by the DA. The little weasel probably wanted the media attention. Never could stand him even back when he was in my court. I already put in the call to the State Attorney. I'll expedite things. In the mean time, you need to go calm down." He softened his tone as he added, "and get yourself cleaned up."

Chris looked down, following Travis's gaze. Small streaks of blood stained the blue denim shirt he'd been wearing. He didn't remember getting the blood on him, and seeing it now caught him off guard. He took in a slow deep breath, focusing his attention on remaining upright.

"Sorry, I didn't even – "

"Don't apologize, just go get yourself together. I'll buzz your office when the prisoner is delivered."

Chris made his way back to the team's bullpen. He wasn't surprised to hear the subdued sounds coming from within. JD would have come back, knowing he was more comfortable settled in at his own computer as he set about finding every shred of information possible about their newest target. The creaking of a chair meant Vin was at his computer as well, probably reviewing any video he was able to get of the scene and comparing it to what they already knew in the hopes that a lead would appear. The only voice he could hear was from Buck as he was turning the charm on full force trying, from the sound of things, to get information on some kind of communications device. There was little doubt that he was sweet talking someone into opening up records without having to go to the inconvenience of getting a warrant.

He walked in, not stopping to say anything in his desire to get into his own office to try to clean up before making an appearance. A glance at his phone showed no messages, not that he'd expected anything. If there had been news, the others would have known and shared it the second he was in sight. The small closet space was used more as an armory than a wardrobe, but somewhere behind the guns and ammo was a small travel bag, ready and waiting for the inevitable emergency. Sadly, this qualified.

The outer room was quiet again, meaning Buck was off the phone. Walking out, he saw three tired and dejected men staring without really seeing anything. Maybe Travis was right. They certainly weren't doing much good here, and at least at the hospital they didn't have to pretend to be focused on anything else.

"OK, before we head out, let's hear what you've got so far."

"That won't take long." Buck answered for the others. "JD is cursing at his screen, Vin is mumbling under his breath, and I have got absolutely nowhere on finding out anything about that damn video watch. You can buy them just about anywhere, and there was nothing special to make this one stand out."

Vin nodded his confirmation. "I'd say we ain't got shit on this, but that really is about all we do have. You got any good news?"

"Nothing from Nathan – yet. But Travis has agreed to let me talk to our suspect."

Buck was on his feet and halfway to the door. "Hot damn, now we're talking!"

"Whoa there Buck. In the first place, I said me. You are not getting into that room."

"I won't hurt him bad."

"You won't hurt him at all. Travis is doing this as a favour, and I would rather not have him regretting it."

There was a low growl from under the moustache, but Buck reluctantly headed back to his seat. "Ain't fair."

"None of this is." Chris looked to the other two for comments. Vin merely shrugged, knowing anything else would be a waste of breath. JD hadn't looked up from his screen throughout the entire discussion. "You got something JD?"

The others looked over anxiously. "Don't know. There is something familiar about the tracking patterns here, but I can't figure it out. I keep thinking I should know this."

"You're not trying to say this is internal?" Chris stomach dropped at the thought there could be an inside source behind all of this.

"No, not familiar like that. It's not ours – or any agency. I just feel like I've looked at this before but can't figure out where."

Vin stood and moved to stand behind the young man. "Can you do some kind of matching scan or whatever voodoo it is you do with this thing?"

That was enough to pull JD's gaze away from the screen as he looked up in disbelief. "Voodoo? Seriously?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. I can try something, but I doubt it will give us much. Like I said, it feels familiar, but I think I'd know it if it was an exact match. I suppose I could set up a program with an algorithm that could search variables –"

"Less talk, more action." Chris didn't need to know the specifics, just the results. JD took the command to heart and focused in on the task. He looked up when he noticed all conversation and movement in the room had stopped. "Uh, guys. This is going to take more than a few seconds, so…"

"Right. OK. Vin, what did you find from SWAT?"

"Nothing that helps. The forensics team is still at the bank, but it's too early to know if any of that is going to help. And since we can't use the actual electronics as trail to follow, we've got nothing."

Chris reached his hands up behind his neck, locking his fingers together before slowly arching his back slightly to stretch out the tension that was building in him. Nothing. They had nothing, and he had the feeling that wasn't going to change anytime soon. Given how cautious these bastards had been on previous jobs, he doubted the witnesses were going to be able to fill in any blanks, even with Josiah's skilled questioning techniques. Ezra was their best bet for leads from the actual event, and as much as he hated to accept it, his gut was telling him that was an interview that wasn't going to happen.

Only the tapping on the keyboard and the ticking of the clock could be heard for several minutes. Buck's patience proved to be on the shortest fuse.

"This is nuts. These guys didn't just appear out of nowhere. There has to be some kind of lead, somewhere. I'm gonna get the files on past cases sent here."

"Sounds like as a good a place as any to start. And you're right, they didn't just appear. I'll check traffic cameras and anything else I can find in the area. Maybe we can get lucky and find a car somewhere. Chris, why don't you head over –"

Vin's suggestion was interrupted by a tap at the door as it opened. A grim face Judge Travis walked in, and all movement stopped. Chris's first thought was that Nathan would have called him before calling the Judge, so this couldn't be about Ezra. He prayed quickly that that wasn't just wishful thinking.

"No, I haven't heard from the hospital." Travis knew those needed to the first words he spoke, or nothing else would register with the team. Seeing how the tension in the men dropped, at least a little, confirmed that. "But what I have to tell you isn't much better. There was an altercation at city jail. A couple of prisoners got into a fight – allegedly race based – in the dining hall. All hell broke loose."

"Son of a bitch. Don't tell me our guy escaped?" Chris was ready lead the search team himself, and Vin was barely a step behind.

"No, there was no escape. 'John' was stabbed to death."

"Shit."

"Yes, Wilmington, I'd say that rather sums it up."

 **M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7**

 _ **tbc**_


	8. Chapter 8

The lights were dimmed in the ICU waiting room, reflecting the lateness of the hour. Not that the help was needed. Chris couldn't imagine that anyone who had ever spent time trapped within those walls had ever been unaware of the each passing second, of had ever missed a single tick of the clock. He didn't have to be coached to know it was well after midnight. To know that Ezra had managed to hold on for another day, despite what the doctors had told them.

 _Your friend was brought in here more dead than alive. The fact he survived this at all is somewhat of a miracle in itself. I wish we could be more optimistic, but there was significant damage, only augmented by the delay in treatment. His lungs were damaged by both the bullet and the subsequent edema. We've done what we can to make him comfortable. If he has any family, you might want to notify them as soon as possible._

That had been almost 48 hours ago, and Ezra was doing what he did best – defying the odds. Sure, he was still in a coma, with no sign of movement or reaction to anything or anyone. And Chris knew that if the machines that surrounded the bed were turned off, Ezra wouldn't last more than a couple of minutes. But that's what they were there for. To keep him going until he had the strength to rejoin them. Some people no doubt thought of the ticking of that clock as being yet another moment their family, their friend was away from them. Chris was tying to see it as Ezra moving another second towards coming back.

The soft electronically triggered swish of the doors let him know he wasn't alone. Given the door that had opened, in had to be Josiah coming back from his time at Ezra's side. Fifteen minutes, once an hour. That was the restriction. They hadn't succeeded in convincing anyone that being there with him full time was necessary, and not just for the patient. Why were people so bogged down in rules that the couldn't see the bigger picture? Why didn't they understand Ezra needed to know he wasn't alone? He'd been left that way to often in his life, and this was not a time for it to happen again.

"Chris? You with me?" Josiah's worried voice finally broke through to him.

"Sorry Josiah. Just lost in the moment – again. I'm guessing there is no change?"

The sadness radiated from the big man. "I keep thinking he's reacting to what I'm saying. Thinking I feel him squeeze my hand. Gives me a moment of hope before I realize it's what I want to see, not what's really there."

"You're not switching over to the other side, are you?"

"What? And give up on Ezra? Do I look that foolish? No, I'm just tired. Guess we all are."

Chris couldn't argue that. When one of the team wasn't sitting in the waiting room, it was because they were back at the office, or following some other lead in what was proving to be a futile effort to find the mastermind behind this nightmare. JD had to be pried from his chair to get him away from the computer. He'd developed three programs to try to trace the transmissions from the bank, and all had failed. The dejection in his voice when he finally admitted to his failure had been heartbreaking. _"If I'd been able to do it while the signal was live, it might have worked, but there is just no way to find the path. I'm sorry Chris. Guess I'm pretty useless." Not surprisingly, Buck had been the one to lay into him over that._

 _"_ _Yeah – useless. It's not like you're the one who figured out there was a robbery happening, or figured what Ezra was trying to tell us, or how to use the earbuds to distract the bastards. You've been no help with any of this."_

 _"_ _It isn't enough."_

 _"_ _Are you doing the best you can?"_

 _"_ _Of course."_

 _"_ _Then shut up kid."_

It was only after that scene that JD had been ready to come to sit by Ezra's side.

The others had been every bit as focused, driving themselves to the point of exhaustion. Chris tried to reprimand them over the issue but given the fact he had used up all the clean clothing he had stashed in the office, he really didn't have a leg to stand on.

"You get Nathan to go home?"

Josiah shook his head. "No, but Rain did. She threatened to leave him if he didn't get at least 6 hours sleep."

"Somehow, I doubt she meant it."

"Doesn't matter, as long as it worked. Wish she could come up with a threat for you."

"I'd say that was a case of pot and kettle time, wouldn't you?"

The answer came from the other door as Vin spoke arrived. "Difference is, Josiah's at least been staying put here, getting some rest in between the time he gets to spend in the room. You've been running around since this started."

"And you haven't?"

Vin grinned. "We weren't talking about me. Look, both of you go home. Get some clean clothes and at least stretch out on your own beds for a bit. I'll do the same after a couple of hours here." He could see the argument coming, and decided it was time to play dirty. "Otherwise, the first thing I am going to tell Ezra when he wakes up is how much time you've been spending here, wearing yourselves down. You really want him pissed off at you over that? You know how whiny he gets."

"The man can complain like no one else when the circumstances come together." Chris offered his own weak grin in response. Ezra hated to be fussed over, unless it was on his terms. For something minor, like not being able to sleep in, he could raise the complaints to an art form. But show him some concern over something real, something like life or death, he'd fight your attentions with his final breath.

In a far more subdued tone, Vin made the promise that he knew would let Chris leave. "I'll stay with him Chris. He won't be on his own if he needs one of us with him." It was the closest any of them had come to saying it aloud – they weren't going to let Ezra die alone.

7-7-7-7-7-7-7

The red light of the answering machine looked somehow angry when Chris walked into the den at the ranch. As if it was pissed off at being ignored. "Right, the machine is mad. Larabee, you do need some sleep." He muttered to himself as he walked toward the desk. "Next thing you'll be talking to yourself – shit, never mind." He tossed the mail down on the desk and switched on the small lamp before reaching over to listen to what he was sure would be telemarketers or hang-ups. The only people he wanted to talk to all knew where to find him for the last couple of days.

He deleted the first call by the second sentence. If he wanted his roof fixed, he'd climb up there and do it himself. The second speaker asked for Lowery, so that call was wiped out just as fast. His hand hovered over the delete button to wipe out the last message and froze in place as he started listening.

"Good Evening Mr. Larabee. I wonder if you recognize my voice. It has been several months since we last spoke, and conditions at the time were less than ideal." Instinct had Chris ready to call JD to run a trace on the call before he remembered this was a message, left over a day ago according to the time stamp. "I had hoped to speak with you directly, but knowing that you would try to locate me, I thought it best to contact you in a slightly less direct manner. The first point to address is to offer a bit of help identifying the man so tragically killed in the city jail. You won't find him in your data base, although he should have been there. My computer experts are almost as good as your Mr. Dunne is, and as such were able to delete John – yes, that really is his first name – Hammond from the system. If you want to check archives, you might try Sacramento. He served time at Folsom and I'm sure some paper files still exist there."

Chris paused the playback, needing to take a moment to collect himself. He reached out for the phone but stopped. There might be no problem if he placed a call, but on the other hand, JD might be able to track this better if nothing was on the line since. Might be a stupid thought, but it wasn't his area of expertise, and he wasn't going to take any chances. He pulled out his cell, hesitating for a moment. There was a call he should make first, but 2 am wasn't a great time for it. He grimaced slightly as he pressed the appropriate icon and listened to several rings before getting a gravelly "What?" shouted in his ear.

"Sorry Judge. It's Chris."

"Damn it. Ezra?"

"No. I need a warrant to trace a call that came in on my home phone."

"And you need this because…?"

"I know who the mastermind is. He called to gloat."

There were about 10 seconds of silence as the judge roused himself enough to form a coherent thought.

"Say that again."

"It's Barrington. And before you ask, yes, I'm sure. I haven't heard that voice since he tried to blow Ezra up, but I can promise you I will never forget it."

It has been months since that particular nightmare, but Chris didn't need to tax his memory to clearly picture Ezra bound to a chair in the utilities room at ATF headquarters, surrounded by what he believed to be explosives and holding on with his last bit of strength to a primed hand-grenade. When the inevitable happened, the two men had been able to avoid the worst of blast, but Ezra has spent three days in the hospital, and several weeks on desk duty as he recovered from the injuries. He brushed off any talk of emotional trauma from the affair, but Chris had noted a touch more claustrophobia in the man than there had been before.

Aside from the obvious, the worst part of the whole thing had been the fact that Barrington had been not just in the building during the ordeal, but was actually in the room, posing as a bomb tech. It was a psychopath's need for attention that let him put himself into the middle of the action, according to Josiah. Chris actually preferred Buck's explanation; the man was an evil, sadistic, son of a bitch who got off on making other people suffer. Unfortunately, he was also, as it turned out, brilliant, and had been able to avoid detection since that case. They hadn't stopped looking, vowing to make sure he paid for what he'd put them through. Now, it looked like he had shown up where least expected.

Travis was silent again as he mulled over his options. "OK, I know who to call to make things official, but get Dunne on this now. It's your phone, you can initiate the actions. And if I know Dunne, he won't be needing any official access to find out what he needs, but I'll have it for you anyway."

"Thanks Oren."

"Don't thank me, just get the bastard. All those building repairs screwed up our fiscal year end figures."

Chris chuckled softly. "Yeah, that's why we all want to see him locked up." He hung up and immediately called JD. The fact Buck answered wasn't all that surprising.

"Kid's asleep Chris. Passed out in front of his laptop. Do I need to wake him?"

"Yes, but not for the reason that has you holding your breath. I need him to track a call that was made to by home number for the location. Answering machine says the call came through at 6:52 last night, although the timing might be off a few minutes."

"I take it you know who called." He could hear Buck moving as he spoke.

"Barrington. He's behind this."

Waking JD was no longer an issue. The loud string of creative expletives that exploded from Buck undoubtedly had roused several neighbours from sound sleeps as well. Somewhere mixed into the tirade was the promise they'd have the information "faster than shit through a goose". With that questionable reassurance, Chris disconnected the call and went back to his machine. The light continued to blink signally the message was on hold. He was torn between the desire to hear it out and the urge to pull out his gun and blast the device to pieces. While the second option would have been more satisfying, the first was imminently more logical. With no enthusiasm for the deed, he released the hold.

"My other motivation for calling was to reassure you that I never in a million scenarios envisioned Mr. Standish ending up in the middle of all of this. Had I even considered the possibility the ATF could end up involved in a bank robbery, I assure you I would have bypassed Denver for a safer location. Incurring your wrath once was risky enough, but unavoidable during our first encounter. Angering you and your team a second time borders on suicidal, and that is not my way of doing business. I do hope Mr. Standish survives this incident. His tenacity during our first dealings showed me that he is a fighter and I trust that inclination will serve him well in the endeavour.

Lastly, I feel I should advise you to spare yourself the time and energy in tracking this call. It is being routed through countless servers and relays. As I said, my technicians are almost up to Mr. Dunne's standards. And, even if you do break through the assorted barriers, I am outside of your reach, in a location that has no extradition agreement with the US. So, unless you plan on turning vigilante, a character trait which may tempt you, but to which I don't imagine you will stoop, I am safe where I am. I sincerely hope, for both our sakes, this is the last time I will need to be in contact with you. Good night Mr. Larabee."

 **M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7**

 _ **tbc**_


	9. Chapter 9

"You know, a one-way conversation with you isn't nearly as interesting as the ones when you get involved Ezra. We're all getting a bit bored by it." Buck didn't have to work too hard to sound frustrated. The past few days had introduced him to levels of aggravation he hadn't experienced in years. Frankly, he would have been happy to go his entire life without feeling this exasperated and discouraged again.

The frantic activities that followed Barrington's phone call had proven to be little more than a phenomenal waste of time and energy. Every trail they could find came to a dead end. To characterize the man as a ghost was understating the problem. It had taken a toll, physically, mentally and emotionally on the whole team. There wasn't another agent in the building brave or stupid enough to go anywhere their offices, and Travis had finally banished them from the office in no small part due to the growing repair costs for damaged furniture and walls.

"I won't lie to you Ez. Things aren't going all that well. JD is about as down as I've every seen a body get. Not bad enough he's been hurting over what happened to you but now he feels like he let Chris down as well. He's been working his ass off trying to track that Barrington bastard but it's like the SOB left the planet or something. And you know if JD can't find him, well then, he just can't be found. None of us have been able to talk him out of his mood.

Not that Chris's mood is much better. I've seen rabid dogs that have a better temper than he's had since he heard Barrington's voice. He's busted two phones in as many days. Put a decent size hole in the wall when he threw the second one."

Buck sighed deeply. "Shit Ezra, I probably shouldn't be telling you all this. Nathan says we need to be talking to you now, since the doctors stopped trying to kick us out of here. Thing is, we're supposed to be encouraging you to wake up and so on. Can't imagine you need me to tell you how much we all want you back. That seems kinda obvious. Besides, you know how sulky the guys get when any one of us is stuck in here. Visiting hospitals is not on our list of preferred pastimes. Although, I do admit the nurses around here are something to look at. Gonna have to work at getting a few phone numbers from them. Not that I really have to work that hard!" He wondered why he even bothered to put on the act.

His eyes moved to the monitors. Despite Nathan's best efforts to explain what each piece of equipment was doing all that he could see was some kind of Frankenstein's lab of mechanical chaos. It looked terrifying, and that sense of dread only got worse each time the realization hit that they were the only things keeping Ezra with them. Buck's mind wandered to the question he had been fighting back – how long would it be before talk turned to switching all of this off? "Don't worry about it Ezra. We're gonna be a human wall between you and anybody stupid enough to try something like that."

The silence was killing him. "We are going to find the bastard Ezra. I promise you that. May not be tomorrow, or next week, but sooner or later we are going to find him. Everybody is working on it. Even Travis is calling in favours with Interpol and Scotland Yard and God knows who else. That man has a scary number of connections. I get the feeling he has more in his background that any of us know about. We're gonna find him and he's not gonna be able to hurt you again Ezra."

"That doesn't exactly sound like the kind of talk Nathan had in mind." Vin's voice was soft, but still served to startle his friend.

"You think it matters what we say?"

"If it didn't you wouldn't be trying to boost him up, would you?" Vin pulled a chair closer. "We all want a shot at Barrington, but it might not happen. At least, not yet. Every trail has gone cold, and it doesn't seem to matter much where we look."

Buck fought back the desire to start shouting. "Travis telling us to back off?"

"No. In fact, he seems to be working as hard as we are on this. I'd love to know how a judge has some of the contacts he does. Truth is, without a lead, we're spinning our wheels. Right now, there are more important things to focus on."

"What's more important than finding the SOB who got Ezra shot?"

"Making sure Ezra gets better." Buck turned at the sound of JD's answer and found the rest of the team standing just inside the door. "Believe me Buck, I – we – want this guy too. But that guy in the bed is a hell of a lot more important."

There was simply no way to argue that point, so Buck wisely chose to shut up and started to sit down again, only to be stopped by an order from Chris.

"Nope – you go home. We don't all need to be here, and you look as tired as I've ever seen you."

"I'm no worse off than any of the rest of you."

Josiah chuckled. "Not exactly an encouraging description of your situation."

"Look, we all need some down time." Chris offered a softened version of his glare when Vin chuckled at the comment. "Yes, I know I'm the worst offender. But Ezra is going to be pissed off, for good reason, when he wakes up to find all of us passed out on his floor."

"Not leaving him on his own." JD challenged despite his own evident exhaustion.

"I'll stay." Vin's voice was quiet but assertive.

"You've been here as much as any of us. More actually." Nathan had not been the only one to notice Vin's need to be near Ezra since this started but was the first to comment on it. They all wanted to stay close, but Vin had somehow managed to be the one there most often.

Vin was silent for a moment watching Ezra's chest slowly rise and fall under the control of the respirator. "You were there. You were with him. Watching this from above, from too far away from it all, I just felt like I wasn't there for him."

"You can't really think he didn't know you were with him, as much as any of us could be? He knew Vin. He knows now." Josiah's words didn't change anything.

"I know it makes no sense, but it was how I felt sitting up there."

Chris didn't try to reason with him. He knew they all felt that same sense of failure, being so close to Ezra and unable to stop him from slowly bleeding, God forbid, to death. It hadn't occurred to him that it would have been that much harder to watch it from a distance.

"Just remember what you've been telling me. Wiping yourself out won't help him. OK, everybody else outta here for the night. I'll bring you some breakfast Vin." He rested a hand on his friend's shoulder as the younger man pulled his chair closer to the bed and prepared to settle for the night. "Don't be too hard on yourself. We all did what we could. He knows that."

"I know. Doesn't make it any easier though."

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There was a voice somewhere deep in the back of his mind telling him he needed to get up and get moving. He couldn't figure out who it was, but he knew he should probably be listening to it, although he had no clue why. The words were muffled, sounding like they were trying to filter their way through layers of cotton. The longer he dwelled on that thought, the more he realized his entire body felt like that. His mouth was so dry his tongue stuck to the roof of it. Sluggish was far to weak a word to describe how every muscle in his body felt, and the mere act of thinking about opening his eyes seemed to exhaust him. Maybe just a few more minutes of sleep would clear things up.

He didn't know how much time had passed before the muffled sounds began again. Maybe they'd been going on the whole time. He simply couldn't sort any of that out. This wouldn't do. That same annoying voice was at him again. He needed to wake up, before it was too late. Too late? Too late for what? It couldn't be work. Being late for work was an engrained aspect of his very being. It would be too much of a shock to others if he appeared on time. Unless… was he on job? No, that couldn't be it. He wouldn't be feeling like this if he was working. The adrenaline of undercover work kept him sufficiently stimulated that he woke up in character, or at a minimum, aware of his character. Right now, he was just plain Ezra Standish. He smiled to himself. Nothing plain about Ezra Standish, and he knew the rest of the team would have been quick to make the same observation.

The team. That was who he was hearing through the fog. Yes. He was almost willing to bet those were the voices in his head, trying to get through to him. Now, why were they doing that? Foolish question. They were trying to communicate with him. The better question would have been, what precisely were they trying to say? It had to be more than get up. If that was all, one of them, likely Buck with JD by his side, would have dumped him out of bed, or something else into the bed to encourage his hasty departure from the comfort of the covers. Chris would have been yelling, not coaxing and more importantly, none of them would be in his room doing any of that.

First deduction – he was not in his room. He fought to try to focus on his surroundings. What could he see or hear to provide the necessary clues to work this out? That was his first realization that he couldn't see anything. It didn't feel like he was blindfolded, and a surge of panic raced through him. If not blindfolded, then blind! He fought back with his once again ebbing energy. He wasn't blind. He couldn't be. _Stop jumping to the worst conclusion Standish and think this through._ He calmed enough to allow another option into the mix, and if he'd had the energy, he would have slapped himself. His eyes were closed. The simplest solution was usually the correct one, although not always the most interesting. _Open your eyes Ezra_. Well that should have worked. Why couldn't he do something that basic?

Once again, it was a simple, obvious answer. He'd been hurt. That awareness opened him up to a wide range of aches and pains that had previously been overlooked his desire to determine his situation. His throat was raw, and his chest was burning. Every breath seemed to create an ache deep inside him. Now that he was cognisant of the pain, it seemed to increase at a rather alarming rate. The only positive he could draw from any of this was that this much suffering had to mean he wasn't dead. Because as bad as it was, Hell would be worse. On the other hand, eternity spent hooked up to who knew what in a hospital bed was pretty damned close to his very definition of Hell and may well be the fate to which he was destined.

He quelled the growing anxiety, determined to figure out exactly where he stood, or more accurately laid, in this matter. The meant recalling how he got here – this time. Visions of past hospital stays flooded his memory. He dismissed the childhood incidents, pushing them back behind the locked door in his mind for some future nightmares. Likewise, his time with the FBI was set aside. That was history, even if it wasn't as forgotten as he would have preferred. This was current, and undoubtedly involved a case he and the team were involved in. The faces and profiles of gun dealers, smugglers, and other assorted vermin flashed in his mind, but none screamed out at his as having any relevance and the tried to move away from that avenue. His last hospital stay hadn't been due to any case but was at the hands of a mercenary who had elected to make him the pawn in a game. Humiliating, and frighteningly close to fatal. But that was too long past to be the cause for his latest enforced bedrest.

Damn, why couldn't he remember? Why couldn't he open his eyes and look around? Who was with him? He knew someone had to be. They wouldn't leave him alone. It simply wasn't in their nature. They would be close by, watching him, encouraging him to come back, as he would be doing if the situation was reversed, not that his gift for getting into trouble often allowed that to be the case. Chris was always berating him for that – for being the one to find trouble with such ease. And now, in a ridiculously predictable manner, Ezra had reinforced that belief. It wasn't his fault he was in the bank when this happened.

His body didn't have the strength to react with the same gasp of recognition that his brain did. The bank. The robbery. He'd been shot. Dear God, had anyone else been hurt? He'd tried to send a message but clearly it had been a futile effort. He feared things must have gone badly, since he couldn't imagine any other outcome. And he'd been left to die in the street. Not the noble ending he'd hoped for himself. Bleeding out in a gutter lacked dignity. Mother would be mortified when she got the news.

Now that the story was in place, he was wishing it had remained hidden. He would have been far happier not remembering another disastrous episode in his life. He had let down the people in the bank, his family and his team. He only wished that reality had been more of a surprise to him, as he let the feeling of failure overtake him as he drifted off again to peaceful oblivion.

M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7

tbc


	10. Chapter 10

Chris picked up the speed of his walk as he spotted Vin and Josiah in the waiting room down the hall from Ezra's room. Neither looked remotely happy about being away from their friend's bedside. This didn't seem like a good start to the morning.

"What?"

Vin shook his head quickly. "We don't know. Ezra seemed to be fine to me. Well, not fine, but nothing wrong. Doctor came into the room about," he glanced at the wall clock, "20 minutes ago and told us to step out."

"That's it. No explanation?"

"He's a doctor Chris. They don't explain, they just do." Josiah rarely sounded pissed off, but today was an exception.

"But it could be just routine review of his condition, right?" Neither of his men seemed to feel that was the case but were reluctant to express their reasons. Just moments after being banished, Vin had been the one to raise the taboo subject – the fear they'd all had but hadn't voiced. Chris was smart enough to read it in their faces.

"Nobody is pulling any plugs. They don't have authorization, and Ezra does NOT have DNR order."

"I can assure you that pulling the plug is the last thing on our minds Agent Larabee." The three men spun around to face the doctor approaching them. "My apologies if that is the impression we left you with."

"It's been 4 days with no change. Guess we're all getting a bit anxious."

"Oh, but there has been change. The monitors were reflecting it most of the night. He is starting to come out of the coma. We've removed the breathing tube to try to make him more comfortable and are decreasing the dosage on his medications."

Vin felt his knees go weak and had to make a concerted effort to remain standing. Josiah's reaction was less subtle as his face cracked with a full grin, followed by a subdued but heartfelt "Hallelujah". Chris was silent for several seconds while he fought to find his voice.

"How long until he wakes up?"

"We can't say for certain. It could be a few hours, or even a couple more days until he decides to rejoin us, but I can assure you that barring any unforeseen developments, he is going to wake up."

"Being out for this long, and with the breathing issues, are the going to be any long-term issues?" Chris wasn't really sure he wanted the answer, afraid it might ruin the only good news they'd had in days, but not knowing wasn't going to change the reality.

"Until he wakes up it is impossible to definitively state any prognosis on those issues. What I can tell you is that his scans are good, there has been no infection and no indication of pneumonia or significant other respiratory issues. Given what happened, and how it happened, that is a pretty remarkable statement to be able to make. Let's call this cautiously optimistic, shall we?" With a quick smile and turned and walked away.

The trio stood staring at each other, each somehow afraid if they said anything they would break the spell. Chris finally reached for his phone. "Guess the others will want to hear this."

"Ya think?" Vin grinned widely. "I'm going back inside. Don't want him waking up alone."

Josiah gently grabbed at his arm. "You heard the man Vin. Hours, maybe days. You have to get some rest."

"I know, but right now, I just need to see this for myself. We'll work out shifts, but for now, it's me." He didn't wait for a response.

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It was quiet the next time Ezra became aware of himself. He wondered fleetingly how much time had passed before dismissing the thought. It really didn't matter. At this point, in his way of seeing things, nothing mattered because it somehow didn't seem significant. More importantly, and this thought did bother him, nothing seemed real. He had a vague feeling that a detail like that should bother him. He couldn't understand anything that was going on around him, or to him, and that confusion was enough to drain his will away. _Funny, I thought I was more of a fighter than that._

The one thing he did know beyond any doubt is that he was tired, and not just physically. He was tired of waking up in hospitals. Tired of dealing with rehab, pain pills and the lingering aches and pains that never completely went away. He was tired of spending his time with lowlifes and vermin and people who valued money and power far above any human life. And to what end. No matter how many they stopped, there were always more ready to fill the void, each one appearing to be more devious and less - than the last. He was tired of seeing only the worst aspects of humanity every day. He'd had enough. Where these thoughts were coming from, and why now, he didn't really understand. But like so many things at this moment, that didn't matter.

What did seem to matter to him was the distinct impression that he'd sacrificed enough, and with so little to show for it. Sure, he had a nice home, not that he was able to spend much of his time there. If he added up the hours, he'd probably spent more time in assorted undercover residences than he had under his own roof. Yes, he had a nice car, and a wardrobe that was far more suited to a celebrity than a federal agent. But those items were part of his act. Part of the person that he presented to the world to keep his image intact. He had played that role – Ezra Standish, sophisticated man of mystery – for so long he wasn't even sure himself anymore who he really was.

He had no family to speak of. His relationship with Maude was at best strained. Hardly the ideal mother-son connection. He'd never known his father. Never even been entirely certain who the man was, as that story changed when it was convenient for Maude to create a new background. Personal relationships had never been his strong suit, having spent far too much of his time learning to camouflage his emotions. That was the excuse he gave for coming home to an empty bed. Besides, who would want him? Questionable past, career ending scandals and questionable ethics, at least in the eyes of most people. No respectable woman would come anywhere near him. When he added it all up, he was having trouble coming up with a reason to move past the exhaustion and try to come back one more time.

The voices were back. Just two this time, a bit clearer than before. They were still muffled and distant sounding, but the sense of familiarity was unexpectedly comforting to him. It bolstered his spirits to have that feeling and he decided, without a conscious effort, to allow that sensation to push the negative thoughts aside, for just a moment. As the voices became a bit clearer, his mental fog began to lift. These voices, or rather the men they belonged to, were the reason. Yes, he was tired. And frustrated, and melancholy, and despondent and any number of other states that made him willing to surrender to his exhaustion. But he'd forgotten one very important part of his life. He was part of a team. Of a group that was closer than any family he'd ever had, than any co-workers he'd ever dealt with, than any people he had ever known. He was a part of that, for reasons he would never understand, but would always be beyond grateful for. And if it took every bit of strength he had, he was going to make his way back to them.

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Buck shook JD gently on the shoulder, hoping to avoid startling the young man too badly. How the kid could sleep in that hospital chair was a complete mystery to him. He wasn't surprised to find him in the stiff-backed seat, since Chris had laid claim to the padded chair, but he was surprised by the fact anyone could doze off with that posture.

"Wake up kid, or you won't be able to move in the morning."

"Slept in worse spots than this Buck." JD stretched to get his body to loosen up. It bothered Buck just a little to know he would take a lot longer to pull himself out of that chair a few hours from now, but since Josiah would be sharing 'Ezra watch' with him tonight, he knew that was going to be his fate.

Chris was slow to get to his feet, not due to stiffness or fatigue, but simply because he didn't really want to leave. He'd hardly moved from the spot since he had sent Vin and Nathan home several hours earlier. Eight hours rest, eight with Ezra and eight working on finding Barrington. The last was proving to be the most exasperating.

What had been a cold trail was now frozen solid. The bastard was on dozens of watch lists from almost every law enforcement agency in the world, but somehow was staying of the radar. The best thinking had him holed up in some less that friendly foreign nation, paying off whoever he needed to in order to run his operations. It was a roadblock, no question about it. It slowed them, but no one was giving up yet. Officially, they were being told to back off. Unofficially, this was going to be an open file on everyone's desk until he was locked up for good.

Shaking all that off for the moment, Chris took a step over toward Ezra. "OK Standish. This is getting old. Don't you think you've been lazing around long enough?"

"You have to do better than that Chris." Josiah smiled as he moved to take over the vacated seat. "He's used to hearing you on that subject. Won't even register with him."

"Not so sure about that big guy." Buck was grinning broadly as he spoke, gaze not moving from the long overdue sight of Ezra opening his eyes. "Hey there Ezra. 'Bout time."

At the first hint of movement, Chris laid a hand on Ezra's forehead. "Nope, not yet. You need to stay still. Don't think you'd have the energy to do much more than that anyway."

Erza's lips moved with no sound coming. His face contorted with pain as a small cough escaped. Josiah pushed the call for the nurse as he moved closer.

"Hard as it's gonna be for you Ezra, you best stay quiet for a bit. Had a breathing tube in you until just a few hours ago, so talking really isn't in your best interest yet. I'll see about getting you some ice."

The weak smile that he got in return for his offer made Josiah feel better than he could recall feeling in a considerable period of time.

It was a battle to keep Ezra from trying to talk. Chris's glare had no more effect than did JD's pleading. It was only after the nurse arrived and threatened to sedate him that Ezra calmed himself, but it was evident to everyone that he had not given up on his intention.

"Don't care how important you think it is Ezra, you have to stay quiet. Don't make me give you an order."

"What makes you think that would work Chris?" Buck grinned as he moved closer. "Ezra, listen to me. Nobody on the team was hurt. Only reason Nathan and Vin ain't here is cause they're home sleeping for a change. And we got all the hostages out. Few cuts and scrapes was it. Nobody else was hurt. You did real good Ezra."

That was what he needed to know. His team was safe, his job was done. Ezra smiled weakly as he faded back to sleep.

 **M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7**

 _ **tbc**_


	11. Chapter 11

"How long have I been in this state?"

"Good to hear from you again Ezra." Nathan smiled. "And the answer kind of depends on what state you're asking about. Been in the hospital near a week, but the first few days you were pretty much out of things. I'd say it's about two days that you've been waking up – and then falling asleep again."

"If memory serves, I was shot?"

"In the back. Didn't come near your spine, so don't start down that road. It is gonna take you a bit of time to bounce back from this one though. You don't need the details now, but I promise, you are going to be fine.

"Or you will be if we can keep Chris from tearing a piece of your hide." Vin had moved in closer. "He's not too thrilled with you playing hero – again."

"How unlike me. Might I impose on one of you to refresh my recollection of what transpired?"

Nathan had his cell phone out and held up a hand to Ezra to wait. "Chris, you can let the others know he's awake. And talking. Yeah, it's a bit rough, and he still looks tired, but he's asking questions." He listened for a minute, then grinned. "Fancy as always. Look, try to get everyone to hold off a bit longer before crashing in. Oh. OK." He hung up.

"They going to come tonight?" Vin asked, fairly certain he knew the answer.

"Already on their way. Chris asked if Ezra's vocabulary was up to par and they were out the door without waiting for an answer. You OK with visitors Ezra? Ezra?"

The soft snore he got as response came as no surprise.

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The timid knock at the door astonished him. No one ever seemed to ask permission before barging in. Ezra opened his eyes, surprised to find the room empty. As far as he could recall, it was the first time that had happened. He tried to call out to permit entry, but a hoarse gasp was the best he could manage. The tapping was repeated, and his second effort to summon the visitor had no more success than the first. At a loss for what to do, he was pleased to see the door open tentatively.

"Mr. Standish? Are you awake?" The woman barely whispered. Ezra was fairly sure he could get more volume than she demonstrated. He looked as her as he cautiously raised a hand to wave her over. The face was familiar, but he couldn't quite place from where. There was no sense of threat or danger from her. Anyone that timid about entering had no intention of doing harm.

"Oh, I am so glad you're awake. Mr. Larabee called to let me know, and I think I just about fainted with relief. I've been praying for you, and if you knew me better, you'd know that isn't something I generally do."

"And do I know you madam?"

She seemed surprised at first, then smiled shyly. "Only in passing. They told me you might not remember to much of what happened."

Before he could respond the door burst open with no warning knock. That was more like it. "Sorry Ezra, I expected to be here before Miss Eddington arrived. Where's Buck?"

"Should I know?"

After looking around as if expecting the man to appear from nowhere, Chris stated the obvious. "He must have had to leave for a minute. Probably with a nurse. Well Miss Eddington, now do you believe me?"

"You were right. He doesn't seem to know who I am."

"Nonsense. We had a far too brief acquaintance under less than ideal circumstance in the bank. Forgive me for not recognizing you immediately. Dreadful faux-pas on my part."

"Under the circumstances, I don't think I will hold it against you." She chewed nervously on her lower lip, unable to bring herself to make eye contact.

Chris looked for a way to break some of the tension in the room. "Miss Eddington has been calling us every day to check up on you."

"Please call me Sylvia. I think we have spoken enough to be that informal. And yes, I've made quite a pest of myself I'm afraid."

"These gentlemen are known for their patience, providing you are on the right side of the law. And are not me."

She looked back and forth at the men before taking a deep breath and speaking. "I have spent almost every waking moment of the last week, and probably most of my sleeping ones as well, trying to figure out how to say what I want to say to you, and I still haven't figured it out. Thank you seems insufficient, and nothing else seems to fit."

"You shouldn't have troubled yourself with such matters."

"Troubled myself? Mr. Standish, you saved my life. I should have been the one outside. I should have been the one they – they shot." She struggled to keep her voice from shaking. "You switched places, and I will never be convinced you didn't know what was going to happen." She swiped a tear angrily from her cheek.

"You give me far too much credit. I simply saw the opportunity to attempt to communicate with Chris and the others, in hopes of hastening our rescue. I can assure you my motivation was to escape our captives, not to sacrifice myself."

A look passed from Sylvia to Chris that clearly said neither believed that.

"With all due respect Mr. Standish –"

"Please – Ezra."

"With all due respect Ezra, and forgive my language, but you are full of bullshit."

"We've told him more than once his eyes should be brown, not green." Buck entered the room in time to add his opinion.

"To imply my actions were anything other than self-serving is to slander my reputation, and I will not tolerate it."

Laying a hand on his friend's shoulder, Chris brought an end to the debate. "Give it a rest Ezra. What you did falls under the category of above and beyond the call."

"It is nothing more than any of you would have done, had the situation called for it."

"Strange how we don't seem to find ourselves in that sort for situation nearly as often as you do." Buck grinned to take a bit of the sting out of the observation.

Chris gave the patient a soft glare. "Which I am pretty was the point I was making before any of this started. "

If Ezra had felt up to it, he would likely have stood in quiet indignation at Chris's claim, despite the evident truth. "It isn't as though I actively seek out misfortune."

"You don't have to. It seems to have a homing device set on you."

Sylvia could tell from Ezra's discomfort that this conversation was not something he wanted to have with guests present. He probably didn't want to have it at all, but that wasn't something she could control.

"I'm going to leave to you get some rest. I would like to visit again, when you are feeling stronger, if you don't object."

"Only a fool would turn down the opportunity to enjoy the company of such a charming companion. I shall be counting the hours."

"I would suspect days more than hours, but I will be back. And Mr. – Ezra. Thank you."

Buck waited until the door had closed. "You've got yourself a real fan there Ezra. Pretty too."

"You have all no doubt been misleading her with fanciful tales of my supposed heroic moments."

"Knock it off Ezra. Everything we told her, which wasn't much 'cause we know how much you value your privacy, was the God's honest truth. Can't help the conclusions she reaches based on what she witnessed herself."

It wasn't the first time the matter had been debated, and likely wouldn't be the last, but Chris was damned if he was going to let Ezra's self-effacing BS define what had happened on that day. As much as he would have loved to dress him down over what had happened, there was no way he could do so without being hypocritical. His agent had done exactly what he would have, what any of them would have. The reality was, he admitted to himself, that it was much easier to be the one making the sacrifice than it was to watch a friend do it.

Ezra seemed to sense that there was no point to the discussion and decided to save the efforts for some other time. He was certain the opportunity would appear. Right now, he had more pressing concerns on his mind. Most elements of what had transpired to land him here had come back to him, and he realized that one particular detail had been studiously avoided whenever the subject was discussed.

"I can only assume that we have been less than successful in tracking down the mastermind of the operation, despite what I know must have been a Herculean effort by all involved."

Chris glared at Buck who held his hands up in denial. "Don't look at me. I haven't said a word."

"Nobody has, which is precisely why I know it to be fact. Clearly we have encountered a formidable opponent in this man – or woman?"

As much as he would have loved to forestall this conversation until Ezra was out of the hospital, or at least feeling stronger than he was now, Chris knew this side of the man to well. He wanted answers, and there was no way to avoid giving them to him with creating a situation.

"It's a man Ezra. We know who, just not how to find him. He'd kind of a ghost – just disappeared."

"JD's been running himself ragged searching for trails on line, and the rest of us were using up every contact and favour we had. Even Travis."

Ezra was mystified. "With such a concerted effort, his capture would seem to be inevitable. After all, it is not like we could have two such super-villains on our most wanted list. The inability to locate Barring-" he froze in mid-thought and looked at the two men who were refusing to meet his eye. "No. That is stretching credibility to its extreme. Are you seriously telling me that bastard is behind this? If you can't find him, how can you be sure?"

Well, this was going to be fun. "He told me."

"You spoke to him. Was there a reason you didn't arrest him at the time, or is his apparent vendetta against me insufficient motivation?"

"Steady hoss." Buck could see Ezra's face reddening and was worried about what this shock was doing to his still fragile health. Unfortunately, that wasn't the spin Ezra put on things.

"Forgive me for taking umbrage at your inability to confine a man who seems to have my demise as his goal."

A look from Chris stopped Buck from voicing his response. "Ezra, I get you're pissed off, and I don't blame you. Do you think you can calm down enough to keep the medical teams from charging in here to sedate you?"

There was no verbal response, but Chris could watch the change. It was the same technique employed when Ezra needed to lose himself in an undercover role. It shut him down, and that was not what they needed right now.

"Don't Ezra. You have every right to your feelings on this. I just want to hear things out, and I think you'll be better with it. Not OK. None of us are OK about any of it. But trust me."

Ezra's face changed immediately. Trust in Chris, in any of the team was no longer an issue in his mind. He remained less than convinced that it was a two-way street, but even that reluctance had faded. After giving himself a moment to focus his control, he nodded to indicate he was ready.

"I didn't talk to him. He left a message that I didn't get until after I got home from the hospital."

"Why were you at the hospital? I was assured no one else had been hurt."

Shaking his head sadly, Chris grinned wryly. "Waiting for word on you Ezra. You kept us on watch a for a while – remember."

"Well that was an unnecessary waste to time."

"Not going to dignify that. Anyway, message was pretty clear. He actually kind of apologized for getting you involved. He didn't know you were going to be there."

"And you believe him?"

"The apology, not so much. But think about it. We didn't know until an hour before you would be there, so how could he."

Rationally, it made sense. At a personal level, it was harder to accept. "I am to believe that fate once again selected me to toy with? How did I ever get so lucky?"

It was Buck's turn to smile. "Because fate knows you can handle it."

"It overestimates me."

"Nah."

Not ready or willing to travel that path, Ezra steered the conversation back to the immediate concern. "So as with his last appearance, Barrington has fade into oblivion?"

"We aren't giving up Ezra." JD was adamant, hearing the faint hint of anxiety as he and the others arrived. "No one can completely disappear in this day and age. Too many cameras and satellites and signals to escape them all. Sooner or later, he's gonna slip up."

'And then what?"

The question was unexpected and left them all at a loss. "We go get the bastard. What else?" Vin answered.

The answer didn't satisfy his concerns. "We hunt him, track him around the world to what end. Clearly the man has a gift for anonymity and disguise. He is a lone traveller with no connections, no societal bonds. He will not be discovered unless he chooses to be."

Chris was struck by how much that characterization could have describe Ezra a year earlier. "Don't build him up to more than he is Ezra. He's just a man. Nothing special."

"A man who has twice tried to kill me, twice come perilously close, and twice disappeared. Now you propose that we give him a third chance. You are familiar with the truism 'third time is the charm'.

"Yeah – how about 'three strikes and you're out'" Buck countered. "He's going down Ezra, not you."

"You don't understand. This man is becoming our obsession. You said yourself the everyone has been exhausting themselves and no doubt stepping well beyond their allowable scope to search him out. He has become our Moby Dick, and I have no intention of being a catalyst to the ultimate fate."

JD scoffed. "He's no Moby Dick. A dick, maybe."

There was less levity in Josiah's response. "So in your scenario, which is Ahab – you or Chris."

"Does it matter. The entire crew was lost."

"What's that matter with you Ez? That was a story, this is reality. Ain't like you to want to let the scum get away with shit."

"Barrington is far from ordinary scum Buck."

Vin couldn't believe how negative Ezra had become. "Precisely why it is gonna take a team like ours to take him down. You know that. We are the best – when we work together."

"Enough." As was normal, Chris's patience wore out first, and his tone silenced them all. "I'm gonna allow for the fact you're still tired and not feeling like yourself, because there is no way the agency's top undercover man backs away from something like this when he is on his game. For the moment, nobody's going after anybody. We keep the feelers out and follow up what we can. When – not it, but when – we get a lead, we track it down and put the SOB where he belongs. Anybody want to tell me this team can't handle that?"

Calling on him to put his faith in the team was a dirty trick but Ezra couldn't deny its effectiveness. All evidence supported the claim; together, it certainly appeared there was nothing they could not overcome. While less than willing to do so, he forced himself to meet the gazes of the six men now staring at him, waiting to see if they were still the best damned team the ATF, or any organization, had ever put together. He wasn't close to feeling as confident as he was about to sound, but he knew with their help, he'd get there.

"Only a fool would challenge and indisputable fact, and while I have been accused of a multitude of sins in my time, a few of which I have actually been guilty of, being a fool is not on that list. The bastard clearly has not concept of the world of hurt which he has brought upon himself."

Chris gave a curt nod of satisfaction. "Damn straight."

M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7


	12. Chapter 12

**Epilogue**

He stood quietly on the hotel balcony and looked down on the parking lot of the hospital. The desk clerk had been a bit surprised by the request for such a view but wasn't stupid enough to turn down the extra bills passed to him for the simple task of switching a reservation. And all it took was one look at the steely dark eyes to decide, even without the cash, that it was in his best interest to do as the man asked.

Visiting hours were ending. The increased exodus of cars was all he needed to know that, without having to glance at his wristwatch. The only sign of life coming from his own location was extinguished when he butted out his third cigarette of the night as he seated himself on the flimsy plastic seat. The accommodations were seriously lower than he was used to, which in the circumstances made them a safer option.

Not that anyone was looking for him here. The trail of strategically placed breadcrumbs would have the young computer whiz scanning for signs of him in either the far east or the Australian outback, depending on which lead he'd latched onto. Giving him a couple to follow was the logical ploy. They would assume he'd try to throw them off course, so it was only polite to do so.

Bored by simply waiting and watching he reached for a fourth cigarette but was halted by the appearance of the group he'd been waiting for. Five men together, much more boisterous and upbeat than they had been in the last couple of days. The sixth was likely staying the night again. Still it was a good sign and one that reinforced the information he had gleaned when he had hazarded a brief sojourn into the hospital. It had been easy to disguise himself and slip onto the floor and took little effort to find a talkative orderly who was relieved the group of men staying with the patient in room 417 were in a better mood now that their friend was out of danger.

He was a bit surprised as he realized he'd been relieved to hear that. It wasn't just the awareness that had Standish died, his teammates would not have rested in their mission to avenge him, although that motivation was not to be dismissed. Standish had proven to be a formidable opponent during their first encounter. Made of much stronger character than he'd expected. He'd seen the glimmer of realization when the man began to see through his disguise while tied to a chair wired to explode. Who does that? It had been foolish to dress so well when pretending to be a cop, but he had counted on the confusion to distract the others. It almost worked. He hadn't counted on the keen eye of the undercover expert whose life depended on noticing the small details. He'd been lucky that fatigue slowed his captive's ability to process those details long enough to permit his escape.

And now this. Standish as a customer in the bank he was robbing. Damn the luck. It had been a perfectly good plan, well executed several times before. But this agent, this apparent albatross, managed to thwart him.

Common sense would dictate he should be angry the man had survived to be a future concern, but he couldn't summon that emotion. There was a grudging respect for the sheer temerity of the southerner. And, thanks to the research he had done, an equally grudging respect for the risk he represented. His personal and professional history was intriguing. If they had met earlier in each other's careers, there could have been a wonderful partnership formed.

He waited until the men had left the parking lot, then slid the balcony door open. He took the ashtray and dumped the contents down the toilet, flushing it twice and wiping the dish clean, flushing that tissue as well. Scanning the room quickly to make sure nothing had been left behind, he picked up the small overnight bag and slipped into the hall, down the back stairs and off into the night.

 **M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7**

 **The end.**

 _Sort of. Barrington will be back. Maybe not for a while (the man is an expert at disguise and misdirection after all), but there will be more encounters to come._


End file.
